


The Dukes of Winchester

by jennyfly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abolition, Abolitionism, Abolitionist!Cas, Alpha Castiel (Supernatural), Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean Winchester, Alpha Sam Winchester, Alpha/Omega, Anachronistic, Anachronistic!Science, Angst, BAMF Charlie Bradbury, Ballroom Dancing, Bartering, Bathing/Washing, Bathtubs, Bayonets, Birth, British Empire, Bullet wound, Castiel does not split infinitives, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Colonialism, Courting Rituals, Dancing, Dean Winchester is a Smart Man, Dildos, Dragoons, Drug Use, Epistolary, Exploitation, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Freed!Slaves, Fuck!Colonialism, Gambling, Gay Sex, Growling, Gunshot Wounds, Happy Ending, Hessian Boots, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Imprisonment, Kindness, Letters, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mail Order Catalog, Marriage, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, Mates Castiel/Dean Winchester, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Medicinal Drug Use, Medicinal!Honey, Medicinal!Leeches, Minor Character Death, Misogyny, Mpreg, Mutual Pining, Ocean Voyage, Omega Dean, Omega Dean Winchester, Parliament (UK), Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Piano, Pining, Pistols, Politics, Poverty, Pregnancy, Pressgang, Protests, Public Display of Affection, Recreational Drug Use, Regency, Regency Romance, Riots, Science Experiments, Scientist!Charlie, Servants, Slaves, Socio-Economic Disparity, Soldiers, Stabbing, Technology, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Ties & Cravats, Totally Invented History, True Mates, Various Modes of Transportation, Weddings, Wet Castiel (Supernatural), Wet Clothing, Whigs, World Travel, Wrongful Imprisonment, clockworks, dereliction of duty, kindness of strangers, muskets, puppies!, srsbsns, stab wounds, these tags aren't even in any kind of order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 88,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25959142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennyfly/pseuds/jennyfly
Summary: Dean Winchester raised his younger brother in the capital’s seediest ghetto, living from hand to mouth in unfortunate circumstances. Even so, Dean worked hard providing for Sam, and Sam worked hard at his studies, eventually earning a scholarship to the university. When Sam meets his true mate while rubbing elbows with his university betters, and she turns out to be a royal princess, the Prince Regent makes Sam the 13th Duke of Winchester so he is fit to marry her. Finding himself suddenly in possession of an estate, Sam sends Dean out of the gritty city and into the unknown world of rural life while the newlyweds are away on their honeymoon. At the same time, the Regent sends an estate manager to Winchester to look after the royal investment. When the alpha manager, Castiel, meets the omega brother to the new duke, sparks fly, gentle reader! You need only turn the page and you will stand amazed to read the rest of this story of true love, passion, deceit, adventure, and family.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Patience Turner/Charlie Bradbury
Comments: 129
Kudos: 329
Collections: I love you so, SPN Regency Big Bang 2020, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Introduction and Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Dearest Reader,  
> Before you begin this journey, mind the tags, and please note that I totally made up members of the royal family, titles, and places.  
> I want to thank some people who have helped to make this story happen:  
> First, thank you to [lotrspnfangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotrspnfangirl/pseuds/lotrspnfangirl) for the truly wonderful artwork you can find [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26399389/)  
> Secondly, I want to thank [EllenOfOz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllenOfOz/pseuds/EllenOfOz), [thatpeculiarone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatpeculiarone/pseuds/thatpeculiarone), and [nickelkeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelkeep/pseuds/nickelkeep) for their tireless work in making Supernatural Regency Big Bang come to life.  
> Next, I must thank the wonderful [MaggieMaybe160](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieMaybe160/pseuds/MaggieMaybe160) for her invaluable help with my ineptitude.  
> And last but absolutely not least, I must thank [give_it_a_little_nudge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/give_it_a_little_nudge/pseuds/give_it_a_little_nudge) for basically holding my hand through the entire process of creating this fic from idea to draft to product.  
> Before you begin, please note that although some of the machinations of the plot are or seem anachronistic, all of the technologies and ideologies discussed herein did indeed exist at the time of the setting (vaguely between 1812 & 1818). I used modern interpretations to move some things along more quickly than they really happened, and if I made some theoretical decisions that truly appall you, I probably had a reason for them at the moment of writing.  
> Please, before you comment that I used some terminology or some idiosyncrasy of grammar incorrectly, look it up; you may find that in the era in which this story is set, connotations may have been quite different from what they are today.  
> Furthermore, I used modern colloquialisms here and there for reader-friendliness, and if there are mistakes in the text they are mine; feel free to let me know when you find them. Finally, please never forget that this is not simply fiction but _fanfiction_ , and as such, certain tropes must be adhered to for the sake of reader satisfaction. And, gentle reader, I do hope you are satisfied.  
> All my love,  
> jennyfly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the commoner marries a princess and the gentleman meets the commoner

Once upon a time, the land was filled with love, every alpha had an omega, and every lonely heart had a true mate waiting just for them.

At least that’s how the children’s fairy tales went.

Dean had scoffed as he read those books to Sammy years ago. What good was a true mate when losing one meant you ended up like John Winchester?

Sammy, on the other hand, had delighted in the tales, and just look at him now! Dean looked up to his brother’s face, his untamable hair, his broad shoulders, and his wet eyes. Sam gazed down the aisle of the grand cathedral as the music changed and Jess began her slow march toward them. Toward Sam, that is.

Of course Sam would end up with a true mate and a fairytale wedding with a princess.

Yes, really! Jessica— a genuine princess! Sam Winchester was about to become the new Thirteenth Duke of Winchester, a damned aristocrat, complete with more land than any Winchester in Dean’s memory had ever owned, plus a ramshackle castle, and whatever else Jessica’s dowry and wedding gifts would add into the mix.

And, there stood Dean Winchester, an aspiring inventor who “tinkered,” according to his self-deprecating description, with greasy little gadgets in a dusty little shop above a bake house in the capital city. That tiny, hot room was all he was able to afford so close to the University where Sam studied on scholarship. Dean had toiled since the age of four when their mother passed, and from that day forward he was in charge of raising his little brother. Ever since John Winchester’s death a few short years later, Dean had worked twice as hard to provide for little Sammy. Dean began repairing small clockworks and building fanciful automatons from spare metal scraps that he scrounged from the blacksmiths’ hearths and the merchants’ ash pails when he swept up the ashes around the neighborhood. He could sell the ashes to the soap maker, if he picked through them carefully enough that they’d go through the sifters. Dean combed through everyone’s leavings and kept each and every little bit of metal to make his little machines. Meanwhile Sammy harassed the man who owned the stationer’s shop and learned to copy quires and little books of poetry that young gentlemen would buy as handmade gifts for their sweethearts. Dean wondered if those sweethearts knew or cared that the books weren’t made by the gentleman’s own hand. While Sammy grew up reading and writing and copying, Dean created machines from nothing, and with next-to-nothing, he had managed to keep his younger brother fed and protected, even since before the day that Dean had found out he, himself, was omega.

That day was the last time he had allowed himself to cry, as he contemplated selling himself for the coal that they needed to keep warm and the food that little Sam needed to grow on, but it was that same scrawny little brother who had cried beside him and promised to turn out to be a great big alpha so that he could take care of Dean and make sure his big brother never had to be sad again. For that vow, Dean fought. He worked calluses onto his fingertips and ate the scraps left from Sam’s meals for years. And true to his word, Sam did grow up to be an alpha, a great big one, and he eventually also became this fine young man of two-and-twenty who stood in the great cathedral of the capital city, ready to marry the mad king’s second-youngest daughter.

Through the ceremony, Dean thought about how overjoyed he and Sammy had been in their first winter living orphaned above the ovens on Glassblowers Street, for they were finally never cold. Sammy’s penmanship improved when his hands weren’t cramped from chill, and Dean was able to tinker then in earnest. He had kept at it, making enough to save up for Sammy to buy some secondhand clothes from a tailor that made him look decent enough to attend a school. With a headmaster’s recommendation, and his agile mind, Sam Winchester had been able to attend the second-oldest university in the capital. Dean’s mechanicals had become somewhat popular, and if the money he was able to save to buy himself a new second-hand coat and a pair of salvaged army boots to see him through the next winter ended up going to buy a ticket to the opera for Sam so that he could socialize with his new university friends and avoid being ostracized as a poor scholarship boy, well, Dean could probably find some new (used) socks from the rag man to keep his feet warm.

At the opera, Sam met Princess Jessica. Dean had never seen a true mate meeting with his own eyes. He used to listen to Sammy read the passages from novels, and he had heard the stories in the tavern, but he was not really clear on how it happened. But he did know that it was a profound thing. No sooner had Sam attended the opera than he was invited to the palace!

As Sam dined with the royal family and met Princess Jessica’s thirteen siblings, including the Prince Regent and their father, the old king, Dean tinkered. He wasn’t about to rest on Sam’s laurels and count his chickens. Dean kept working up until the morning of the wedding. Then, after putting the finishing touches on the little mechanical intertwined doves with flapping wings that he had made as a wedding gift for Jess and Sam, Dean had to submit to one of the royal valets and allow the man to clean the grease from his fingernails and scrape the calluses from his fingertips so he could tie the white silk cravat around his throat without scarring or staining it. Now, as he looked at the great stained glass windows that threw rainbows over the immaculate crowd that included the entirety of the royal family, their mates, and their children, he knew he was a fish out of water amongst them. But even so, Dean stood tall for Sam. He was there for Sam.

Dean watched his little brother’s face as Sam, in turn, stared at Princess Jessica as though she had hung every star in the sky just for him. Dean felt himself smile warmly, and he was ready to hand over the bride’s ring when the moment for that arrived. After all, that was the best man’s most sacred duty.

And now, gentle reader, I have escorted you to the beginning of our story. You may read on from here, but be warned that this is not one of those ancient fairy tales where love comes without struggle and princes are always charming.

### 

Dean Winchester was a tall man. He wasn’t as tall as his younger brother, but he was exceptionally tall for an omega. He split his days between physical and mechanical labor, so he was also fit and dexterous. After the ceremony, in the cavernous hall, awaiting the wedding luncheon, Dean gained curious attention as he stood up straight by Sam’s side.

During the endless reception, he drifted away from his brother while the few common folk whom Sam had invited to share in his happiness were being filtered out gently from the nobility with glasses of champagne and a moment to mingle with the royals, and then Dean stood apart from the crowd. He felt stiff in his bespoke tailcoat, and he felt ridiculous for being allowed to dine with the royal family. Plus, he itched to leave along with the other commoners, his and Sam’s friends. None of Sam’s university gentlemen friends deigned to speak to Dean when he occasionally encountered them in a tavern with Sam, so he was certain they would not make conversation now. Still, a few of the invitees were Dean’s friends as well. Patience and Missouri had attended the wedding with wide eyes and trembling hands, and though Dean despaired to watch them leave the hall, he knew they would have hated to stay. Dean fidgeted with his champagne glass as he waited to be told where to stand or sit next.

He let his mind wander to the coming weeks; while Sam and Jess were away for their honeymoon, Dean would relocate to Sam’s new holdings at Winchester castle to begin his role as Sam’s “advisor,” whatever that would mean—Sam was never much inclined to ask for Dean’s advice on any subject these days.

Feeling very dull with his empty glass tapping against his thigh, Dean smiled blandly at the passersby and well wishers, and he tried to learn names when the opportunity arose to do so. It mattered not a fig that he had argued his complete unsuitability at being included in the management of the great household at Winchester castle; Sam insisted he needed an ally in his new position, and one thing about those Winchester brothers was that each always had the other’s back.

“By the look on your face, I’d guess you’re nearly as uncomfortable as I am, here,” a low but pleasant voice said from Dean’s right shoulder.

Dean turned to smile as neutrally as possible at the interloper to his solitude, and he was met with a most handsome face. The man was near to his own height and had dark, artfully mussed hair and deep blue eyes. His cheekbones were high, his nose straight, and his jaw sharp. Dean had expected to see some sign of mockery or haughtiness in the man’s expression, but he found none. Rather, the stranger looked at Dean placidly, eyes tracing Dean’s features in a way that was wont to bring a blush to Dean’s face.

“I do not think it is possible for you to be more uncomfortable than I, sir,” Dean replied with a light smile. “You do not at all look as ill accustomed to your cravat as I am to mine.”

“You would not believe me then, if I were to tell you that I have been ill accustomed to shiny silks and stiff embroideries these ten years past?”

Dean regarded him again. The man cut a very fine form and looked as though his garments were his very skin. “I would not.”

The stranger smiled and then bowed to offer introduction: “Castiel Milton, at your service. I’m something like a fifth cousin of Princess Jessica’s, and since I’m single and literate, the family decided to add me to her dowry.”

Dean’s expression showed his bafflement at that statement, and thus he was slow to return the bow. His body stuttered momentarily, but he soon recovered and returned the salutation, “Dean. Winchester. Sam’s brother. I suppose if men had dowries, you could say I’m part of his package, as well.”

Castiel chuckled lightly at Dean’s self-deprecation, and his blue eyes sparkled. “It looks like we’re finally being ushered into the dining room.”

Dean looked up and noticed that everyone was retreating through the double doors in pairs, so he good-naturedly took Castiel’s proffered elbow and allowed himself to be led through to the grand table. It didn’t occur to him until later that Castiel’s gesture of allowing Dean to touch his person was shockingly intimate for acquaintances that had only just met. In Dean’s former circles, bowing was utterly foresworn for being a symbol of the crown’s tyranny, and casual touching was altogether normal; Dean had often seen Bobby Singer shake a man’s hand upon meeting him. However, Dean had been thoroughly, if hastily, trained in the manners of the gentlefolk before the wedding day had arrived, and Sam had stressed the importance of touching no one. It was all still new to Dean, though, and he wondered if, in this case, taking Castiel’s elbow signified anything. He had taken it as a matter of course that a man of Castiel’s bearing was probably an alpha, and he finally reckoned as they neared the table that the offered elbow was merely a gesture that signified that the alpha recognized Dean as omega. Of course, in polite society it was the custom never to stand close enough to accidentally scent another person, and designations were strictly never mentioned outside of families. Therefore, Dean kept his conjectures, and his nose, to himself.

The bride and groom were centrally seated with the Queen at one end and the King, whose long beard symbolized, to his detractors, his madness, at the other end of the long table. The Queen Mother was there with the Duke of Some-Northern-County, and at least a dozen ladies at the table wore tiaras, though none as fine as Jessica’s on that day. The Prince Regent, Jessica’s brother, sat to the King’s right, and Sam explained to Dean that for a family event they sat as a family rather than in order of rank. Dean had a place reserved next to Sam, and serendipitously, Castiel was placed to Dean’s left. Some duchess across the table from them commented on the excellent view she had for the luncheon, by which Dean figured she meant Castiel’s handsome face, and beside her one of Jessica’s younger sisters tittered and winked at Castiel or Dean—neither man was sure which, and both ignored it fully, as could be reasonably expected of gentlemen who were scarcely acquainted with the young princess.

As was typical for crowds like this, many guests wore perfumes and colognes, so scenting designations, which, of course, would have been in extreme poor taste, was damn near impossible. Even so, Dean grew more confident as the meal drew on that his new friend was alpha. He caught himself ruminating about the man’s finely formed fingers and cunningly cut jawline as he worked his teeth over a particularly bony bite of the fish soup, and Dean was so lost in his head over the man’s physical beauty that he nearly missed the king’s toast. Castiel smiled at Dean when he, a second behind everyone else at the table, stood and raised his glass.

If Dean thought it was odd to interrupt the second course of a meal for a toast, he dismissed it as part of the old king’s idiosyncrasy, which he had been schooled to ignore. The toast was something in Latin that everyone repeated after the king: “ _floreat_ something,” and Dean noticed that Castiel handled it flawlessly while ignoring Dean’s own fumbling and mumbling. Dean grumbled inwardly at all the pretension. Sitting back down to a new course of fine food, Dean noted that every damn part of the meal was pretension.

Hell, the forks at his place setting alone would probably hawk for as much as Missouri made in wages in a sixmonth or more in her shop on Glassblowers Street. Upon his wine glass being refreshed to compliment the new course of the interrupted meal, Dean found himself lost anew in his ruminations over the injustice of the world and the level of complete removal the royals had from reality.

Sam more or less ignored everyone but his new wife throughout the meal, so Dean ended up unable to escape the intricate dangers of noble chitchat with the rest of his neighbors. In all the years that little Sammy had toiled over his school books and quires of paper by feeble oil lamps, Dean for once was grudgingly grateful that his brother had taught him to read something more sophisticated than a fairytale and write more than just his own and Sam’s names and speak, if not properly, at least politely enough that they no longer got booted out of the coffee houses. Not frequently, anyway. Dean had felt deep shame through Sam’s lessons over the years, knowing that as Sam improved himself and tried to drag Dean up alongside him, the younger boy really had just acted to get ahead of the inevitable embarrassment Dean would cause him. It was all too common once Sam had won a scholarship to the university, in those instances when Dean managed to scrounge a few coins, that Sam would drag his brother with him to a coffee house to read the newspapers and listen to the politics. Now Dean’s ability to talk amongst finer people would be put to the test as Castiel was the first to include him in polite conversation, “Mr. Winchester, I understand you are very talented with machines.”

Dean almost snorted but caught himself. Sam had expressly told him that his manners were of utmost import at the table. “I am a tinkerer, of sorts,” he confirmed. “Clockworks, mostly. I enjoy experimenting with automatons, very much.”

“Automatons! Imagine!” said the youngest princess with a beaming grin.

“Ah, inventing is a wonderfully useful talent to have,” Castiel smiled. “Perhaps the opportunity will arise for you to teach me something about your craft with machines.”

“Or find out how to wind Colonel Milton up,” suggested Jessica’s sister. “I believe he is rigid enough to be an automaton, himself. He must have a place for a key on his spine.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose, and he looked to Castiel to determine if he were the Colonel she mentioned. It seemed he was, for Castiel smiled mildly at her, making creases appear in his cheeks, and Dean liked the look on him very much. “Her highness teases me because I was foolish enough to dance with her at her coming out last season, and I stepped on her fine slipper,” Castiel confessed.

“You don’t strike me at all as a man worked by cold gears, Colonel Milton, and I am certain you would find the tinkering too simple to be of interest. Still, if we will be on the Winchester estate together, then some demonstration of mechanicals can be arranged. Jess told me she has written ahead to have a small workshop outfitted for me in the house.”

Jessica’s sister paused midway through lifting her wine glass to her lips and stared at Dean, blinking slowly. The duchess beside her wore the same expression, and Dean thought maybe he had some gravy on his chin, so he dabbed at it with his napkin. However, the silence pressed in on him until it was Castiel who gently got things back on course by saying, “ _Princess Jessica_ has likely convinced her father to stock it generously, indeed.”

Dean caught on, “Oh! Yes, _Princess_ Jessica is the very embodiment of generosity,” he said. “Just look at how kindly she treats my brother.”

Everyone tittered, and the moment moved on. Dean mentally slapped himself for being overly familiar with Jess in front of these snobs.

“I should find your work very interesting, indeed, Mr. Winchester. In fact, I have a friend coming to the estate with me in a week’s time. A scientist. She needs a place to apply her experiments with electricals.”

“How fascinating!” Dean enthused. “Electricity is something I would very much like to witness. I wonder if she knows of that Italian fellow—”

“Oh please do not start discussing science, of all things. There is nothing so tiresome as men who banter in inkhorn terms about some theoretical nonsense,” the young princess complained.

As the duchess clearly agreed with her, Dean shifted topics gracelessly, “What is it you do, Colonel Milton? You are not dressed like a military man.” In an effort not to gaze at the man excessively, he moved the roasted carrots around on his plate and tried to hide them under the pastry crust of his savory pie.

He smiled softly. “I suppose I am now nothing more than a glorified bookkeeper.”

The princess across the table interrupted. “Don’t be modest, Colonel,” she scolded. Then to Dean, she added, “He has a most elegant penmanship and a peculiar style for keeping accounts and ledgers of every tiniest thing in the entire kingdom! Why, even Sir Marv, Papa’s personal scribe, aspires to adopt Castiel’s new methods for the royal inventory,” she beamed at Castiel. “It is a well-known jealousy.”

“Accounts and ledgers?” Dean repeated, confused. And if the princess had been trying to attract the good Colonel’s attentions, well, anyone could see that he watched Dean’s face in rapt fascination.

“I merely count things and prepare the inventories for—well, I used to do it for Vice Chancellor Lucifer, and at the current moment, I am helping my aunt to prepare a particular report for the Prince Regent.”

“You’re a tax man?” Dean asked for clarification of the rather vague information he was receiving.

Castiel grimaced. “I suppose some people probably say so, Mr. Winchester.”

“Well, I suppose I will not hold that against you,” Dean replied, earning disapproval from the young ladies but a most radiant smile from Colonel Milton. Under the soft scrutiny of those too-blue eyes, Dean felt exposed, and he looked away. He turned the man’s words over in his mind and watched the shadows on the tablecloth to keep from staring at the colonel’s perfect face. By “some people” he meant the working class folk, Dean’s people, people like Bobby who were perpetually avoiding the revenue men who came tax collecting every season, people like Missouri and Patience who were ever in danger of losing their home because taxes were always every penny they had and then just enough more to be impossible. Bobby, at least, had learned to persevere by living in a wagon so that when the tax men came to inventory him and assess a tax, they couldn’t mark his address in their book, and he couldn’t be made to pay. The courts had thrown out the revenuers’ suits five times for Bobby Singer. What would _he_ say about this dinner? What would _he_ think of the fork in Dean’s manicured fingers that would pay his tax for a decade?

The young princess, whom Dean had finally learned was called Princess Daphne, nattered on, “It is so like those uneducated masses to balk against paying a little tax. How do they think a country is run? What would they have us do? Let the entire Empire crumble to dirt and filth just because that’s the way they like to keep their own squalid little neighborhoods? I have never understood why the working classes will not work! They’re all, to a one, averse to lifting a finger to raise themselves out of squalor…”

Dean tuned her out and twiddled the fork in his hand and considered pocketing it. He knew better, though. The staff would count everything after the silver was washed, and they would notice it missing. The footmen would be questioned, possibly punished. They would know it was someone at the table. Dean. Despite the fine silk cravat and the elegantly cut embroidered coat, he couldn’t hide being the poorest, commonest man in the room. Half of them probably knew he was omega, as well. They would know he was the one who stole the fork. In deference to Sam, they wouldn’t arrest him for it like they would a footman if he were caught with it, but they would loathe and scorn him for it, and by extension, would make him pay in a thousand tiny ways. So what if taking a single fork could keep Bobby or Missouri safe for the foreseeable future? Actions have consequences, and Dean understood that maxim better than most.

He looked over to see that Castiel was scowling and pushing his unwanted food around, and the ladies across from them were still deep into their own conversation about the incorrigibility of the unwashed masses. The din from all around the table was lively, which made his own and Colonel Milton’s silence seem morose. So Dean was compelled to pick the conversation up again, if for no other reason than to settle his own nerves.

“So as a part of Princess Jessica’s dowry, you must be heading to Winchester to make sure my brother and I can make it profitable again.”

Castiel glanced up from his plate and titled his head like a spooked animal listening for danger. “I believe that is the Prince Regent’s hope, yes.”

Dean frowned and then muttered, “I guess it was foolish of me to assume that granting Sam the title to lands that some distant relative of ours once held was a gesture of good will and belief in his abilities to govern it.”

“That is not it at all,” Castiel interrupted. “Sam is well known at the university for his intelligence and integrity, and no one doubts his competence. The Regent assured himself that your brother’s character and abilities were more than promising--” but Dean cut him off.

“I am certain he did. I’m certain he sent someone up and down Glassblowers Street to ask about Sam. In the end we were only ever going to be--” He wanted to say ‘the crown’s tools,’ but Dean was not so foolish. “We will always be thought of as dirty commoners who got raised up by the grace of a foolish king’s love for his daughter,” he finished in a low voice with a bad taste in his mouth. He looked around, glad to note that no one but Colonel Milton had heard his last statement, and then Dean, having lost his appetite, put the fork down onto the white tablecloth and spent the rest of the meal enjoying the free-flowing wine. He excused himself from the dancing afterword with claims that he needed to retrieve his meager tools and parts from his residence before the bake house’s landlord threw them out in making the paltry (but warm) little room ready for a new tenant.

He regretted his walk down to Glassblowers Street in his fancy wedding duds, however. Neighborhood children beset him for pennies that he didn’t have, and his landlord looked like he would charge Dean a fee for retrieving his possessions. In the end, Dean reckoned if footpads in the park pounced upon him during his walk back to the palace where the wedding guests would stay the night, he probably deserved it for being dressed like a dandy. Luckily, no one molested him, and he was back in his homespun clothes, sewn by a seamstress on Glassblowers Street, the next morning and ready to ride out to Winchester on the early mail coach.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which it is a fine day for a walk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (brief mpreg)

### 

The town of Winchester, it turned out, was very different from the capital. The castle was actually in better repair than Jess had led Dean to believe, and while she and Sam were on the “Grand Tour” for their honeymoon, Dean was in charge of settling the new Duke’s accommodations.

He thanked his lucky stars when he learned his task did not extend to wallpapers and linen colors. Such details were handled by Jess’ ladies in waiting: her youngest sister, Daphne and the equally juvenile Duchess Amelia Lancaster, who had both sat across from Dean at the wedding lunch. The pair of them, each five years younger than Jess and Sam, mere girls of sixteen coming out of their first season, in fact, were to be found tittering and nattering all over the castle, seemingly always underfoot, and ever several decibels louder than necessary. Dean ignored them as best he could, and they never did more than curtsey to him and skip along their way, giggling, when they saw him.

Dean spent most of his time getting to know the carpenters and grounds men, the kitchen staff and maids, the farmers and the grooms. In addition to the impressively appointed workshop Dean had been led to expect, Winchester also had extensive stables that had once been, in all likelihood, the envy of the entire kingdom. There were dozens of additional outbuildings as well, including a forge, a crumbling mill house, and a still, but at the moment, the roofs leaked, the doors stuck, and the fences leaned. Dean looked forward to turning the carpenters and masons to repairing the fine stables and especially the forge-- he hoped to attract a smith to the castle so he could continue with creating his clockworks from melted bits of found metal. Once the skilled workers were out from under the charge of the young ladies who had immediately directed them to finish out Jess and Sam’s apartments in the castle’s so-called “new” wing, he would see about the outbuildings. For the time being, the draught horses and mules that did the farm work were kept in a hilly paddock with a lean-to shed for their shelter in bad weather. Dean had already been informed that their poor feet all needed shod.

The head groom, a man called Mick, smoked too much, but was affable enough and knew his trade. He seemed to be close friends with, or possibly mated to, the butler, Ketch. Along with Ketch, the housekeeper, Rowena, ran a tight ship. Under Rowena, the head cook and boss of the kitchen, Ellen, kept the entire household and staff fed three times a day with an additional tray of fresh biscuits or muffins set out at around three every afternoon with pots of hot tea to keep spirits up through the long working evening. The staff could not dine until after the household had been fed and their mess cleared away, and it made for a long day, indeed. Dean was impressed at the vigor in the kitchens. He enjoyed stopping there to steal a bite when he missed lunch because of once again losing himself around the grounds or getting caught up in conversation with the field hands or builders.

Colonel Castiel Milton arrived a week later than Dean with his own small retinue that included a pair of rowdy men in misleadingly austere waistcoats and fine hats. Dean was introduced to Lord Balthazar, Earl of Milton and Gabriel, Lord Milton before the pair of them vanished to a neighboring estate to shoot. Additionally, Castiel brought along the lady scientist he had spoken of at the wedding lunch. She had lofty hopes to outfit the castle in the new electric light mechanisms that she had seen demonstrated at a grand expo in France, and which Dean recalled Sam reading about in a newspaper. The scientist’s name was Lady Celeste Bradbury, and although she wore breeches and bowed rather than curtseyed, Dean could tell she had been born into her title, unlike Sam. She insisted upon the name Charlie instead of Celeste but nonetheless had an air about her of regal authority, like a queen, though she chose to wear bobbed hair and outlandish cravats. Dean liked her instantly and was outraged on her behalf that the Royal Scientific Society would not allow her a membership on account of her gender. After all, she was blatantly alpha, which should be the only thing that mattered. She wore her designation unabashedly as a badge of honor, and Dean respected her refusal to compromise her personality in favor of propriety.

Castiel Milton was altogether an unknown quantity, though. He had never elaborated on his position in the castle, and Dean was wary of him (and no less wary of his own attraction to him) and his little notebook. If he was there to report to the Regent about what income the crown could expect from the estate, then he could quickly become an enemy to Dean, who could see that any money at all would take several seasons to realize. The man brought with him not only a vast chest of bound books for Sam’s new library (“where the electric lights would make it possible to see as bright as day, even on the dreariest winter evening,” Charlie boasted), but also a grim faced assize judge named Sir Rafael who was to assist Castiel somehow in his task of making Winchester profitable. Dean had no idea why a man like Sir Rafael was necessary, but he was very much the Prince Regent’s man, an agent of the crown, so Dean did not dare to question his place among them.

For his part, Dean was no more than an “advisor” to Sam. It was the younger brother who was, by virtue of his advantageous marriage, in charge of the estate. Dean had devoted his week alone at Winchester to learning how the household traditionally ran and thinking about how it might run better, if that were possible. He had deduced that an estate like this could be kept running from the produce of the farm, and it could, in turn, maintain the farm by raising funds from the excess produce. He had drawn this idea as a circular pattern that followed the seasons. Dean knew that such a venture would be long in the undertaking, as the spring planting had not touched a quarter of the land an estate the size of Winchester would need, were she at full capacity. Plus, this plan would mean reestablishing the local market within the township, and more than that, it would mean reestablishing the township, itself. Dean had noticed, on his countless forays around the boundaries of his brother’s new holdings, that the same faces popped up time and again, and smoke only rose from a quarter of the chimneys. Winchester not only needed money, she needed people: sowers, reapers, millers, shepherds, milkmaids, cheese mongers, butchers, brewers, tailors, seamstresses, nurses, teachers, shopkeepers, a publican… Dean’s list went on. The little notebook he carried with him everywhere was nearly full, but at least he had ideas to discuss with Sam when he returned from the continent.

“You look a million miles away.”

Dean looked up from the page on which he was writing to see Colonel Milton, his dark jacket neatly buttoned but his cravat slightly twisted, standing by the table. The sunlight from the window lit up his eyes, and Dean was struck by the deepness of the blue and the light air of mirth they held.

Dean stood and bowed in greeting, still feeling stiff with the gesture. “I suppose I was, just then,” he replied.

Castiel returned the bow, albeit more elegantly. “A penny for your thoughts, then?” Castiel tossed and then deftly caught a shiny penny from his pocket.

“Oh,” Dean hesitated, watching the coin. He raised his arm to run a hand through his hair and noticed his sleeves were rolled up, and he began fiddling with the cuffs to smooth them down. Where had he left his jacket? “I’ve just been jotting ideas to share with Sam.”

Castiel looked interested. “About the estate?”

“Yes. Also the town.”

“Oh? Would you share them with me?”

Dean felt his face flush. “It’s nothing concrete,” he muttered, trying to demur.

Castiel simply watched Dean fidget with a look of patience on his face, as though he knew that Dean was only trying to be modest but would presently divulge everything.

Sighing internally, Dean could see he had no choice but to discuss an idea or two with Castiel, to placate the man. He gestured to a chair, inviting the taxman to sit with him in the pleasant warmth of the window.

“I was thinking that if we brought in herds of sheep, cows, goats, and horses, we could induce shepherds and herdsmen and horse trainers and the like to settle here, and they could sell the wool and milk and butter and cheese in the shops and markets that sit empty in the town. Soon carders and weavers would come here to find work, and a publican might reopen the town’s public house, and the stables could regain their former glory—” Dean cut himself off suddenly, having realized he was getting carried away. “I mean,” he diverted from the subject of animals, “It might be worth the loss of some of this summer’s fruit to prune back the orchards now, and allow them to recover a bit so that after a season or two, there would be fruit and jam and pies enough to keep a full estate hardy through the winter.”

Castiel regarded Dean very closely with an expression… of concern? Or maybe the man had a headache. But then his face blossomed in that cheek-creasing smile that had caused Dean to catch his breath once before at the wedding luncheon, and Dean almost smiled just from joy at being able to witness that transformation of Castiel’s handsome face once again.

“Mr. Winchester, these ideas are inspiring. I’ve been in talks with the court ever since the betrothal, attempting to create a plan to revitalize Winchester, and you, on your own, have created a plan for self-sufficiency and revitalization far beyond what I had done.”

Dean mumbled, “—just ideas.”

“They’re very astute ideas,” Castiel insisted.

Dean looked away, but he couldn’t hide the grin that tugged at one side of his mouth.

“Will you walk down to the town with me?” Castiel invited. “Show me your vision?”

Dean pocketed his pencil and notebook. “I will if you can wait a moment for me to find my coat.”

Castiel simply smiled and pulled the bell rope. Dean was puzzled, but that turned to shame when Ketch appeared at the doorway. “Ah, Ketch,” Castiel greeted. “Have you, by chance, seen Mister Winchester’s coat around?”

Ketch’s eyeballs drifted toward Dean while his face remained rigid. “I believe it is draped over a chair in the back kitchen, sir.”

Dean started to move to the doorway to run and fetch his coat, but Castiel compounded his embarrassment by adding, “Good! Send someone to fetch it and meet us in the portico, post haste.”

The butler bowed stiffly and retreated with a, “Right away, Colonel,” and Dean just knew Ketch would piss in his pillowcase if he could.

The colonel stopped in the foyer to don his hat and pick up his stick while Dean pulled himself into his coat. Dean was unaccustomed to wearing a hat, as he had never been able to afford one, so he went out bareheaded. If the spring sun on his face brought out his freckles, he was not so vain as to worry about it.

Without considering that he might be expected to allow Castiel to lead the way, Dean stepped out of the house like one of his wound-up little automatons and traced his usual route through the grounds toward the town proper. It was a cool day, but sunny, and he wished he didn’t have to wear the coat and cravat for propriety’s sake because he longed to feel the sun on his neck and arms. He chanced a glance at his companion and noted he even wore a waistcoat under his coat, and Dean pitied him his inevitable discomfort.

Familiar faces greeted Dean, as usual, and although he worried the colonel would think him overly condescending to the commoners, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore his new friends. Castiel stood back a pace or two and watched as Dean knelt to speak to small children and familiarly shook hands with farmers and even an unescorted maiden on the road, whom he called Miss Jo. Each time, Dean introduced his companion, and each time, Castiel bowed elegantly with a pleasant hint of a smile but said nothing, or he tipped his hat with a touch of his stick. In response, the tenants of the estate bowed low or curtseyed awkwardly at him and clammed up. A few times, the folk gave Dean an assessing gaze, as if they had misjudged him previously and were trying to suss him out, anew. Others leveled that gaze on Castiel. Dean, in turn, smiled broadly, and bought their wares with the pennies in his pockets or asked after their children or about the lambing coming soon. Upon meeting the next child along the way, Dean gave away whatever he had bought before and listened to the children ramble about a particularly interesting stick their dogs had fought over.

After an hour or two of this pattern, they turned out of the town and toward the back acres of the Winchester estate, facing long stretches of empty paths. In their solitude, Castiel cleared his throat once or twice as though about to speak, but then said nothing, leaving Dean with an itch of discomfort that the impression he had seemed to make on Castiel back in the parlor had been erased by his filthy familiarity with the common folk.

Upon reaching the grassy meadow alongside the estate’s lake, where Dean customarily stopped to sit and watch the swans on the water, he was taken by surprise when Castiel cleared his throat again and gestured to the soft grass and suggested they rest a moment. “These boots are rather new, and I’m afraid they’ve rubbed my feet,” he said by way of excuse.

Dean laughed without catching himself and commiserated, “The same thing happened to me on my first walk. I put my feet to soak in the cold water awhile.”

Castiel’s dazzling smile erupted across his features. “What a wonderful suggestion,” he proclaimed.

They sat on the grass, and just as Dean was wavering on whether to throw caution to the wind and doff his coat, Castiel tossed his hat and coat into the grass. “This tailor insisted on cutting my coat very close,” he complained. “I can hardly reach my boots so tightly trussed.”

Dean smiled and peeled his own sweaty coat off, and then he wished he hadn’t. The breeze blew across him straight toward Castiel in that instant, as the sweat clinging to Dean’s shirt cooled and prickled gooseflesh over his arms.

Dean saw the moment when Castiel scented him, when the man’s eyes dilated before drifting closed, when his nostrils flared and his mouth opened slightly, tongue pressed against his palate. Cautiously, Dean watched Castiel’s expression change to hunger, and he prepared to flee, instinct grabbing him despite his good sense telling him that to run meant to be caught.

But then Dean saw the alpha turn his head away, though his eyes opened dark and hungry. With unimaginable will he forced his whole body to turn, too, and once Castiel’s back was to him, Dean thanked his lucky stars that the handsome gentleman had some good sense telling him to settle and regain hold of his better nature. Having grown up surrounded by alpha-on-omega crime and told that alphas were simply unable to help themselves when they caught a tantalizing omega scent, Dean was equal parts perplexed and relieved by Castiel’s stiff calm.

Dean sat in the tense silence as Castiel pulled his boots off, and he watched as the man pulled away his elegantly knitted socks with a dragon pattern adorning them. He admired the shape of Castiel’s manly calves and then blushed and averted his eyes, not wanting to be caught staring. Quieting his own breathing and willing his fluttering heart to slow, Dean fixed his eyes on the yellow dandelions dancing in the grass until Castiel, once again in total control of himself, stepped around him to the lake’s edge, apparently determined to continue as though he had not just experienced a flare of desire.

At the whimsy of the breeze, the tables turned, and Dean caught Castiel’s scent for the first time. Instantly, he felt his nostrils flare, his gut clench, and he sensed, as if far apart from his own body, his breath turn shallow and rushed. His mouth watered and his head swam with a sudden rush of blood and dizzying want that gnawed deeper than any winter’s hunger he had ever experienced. Never had Dean been so utterly possessed of a desire this deep, not even in the throes of his tumultuous adolescence when he first learned he was omega. Never since that life-altering fluke of biology had Dean felt so unbelievably complete as in that moment when his being was suffused with Castiel.

The whimper of his own cracked voice pulled him from the depths of his mind, and Dean opened his eyes and turned toward the man in the lake’s shallows. Castiel’s dark hair ruffled in the breeze, and his broad shoulders remained straight and strong atop his rigid back. The sunlight glinted from the silver embroidery on the alpha’s waistcoat, and Dean would have sworn on any Bible that this unearthly man, shining preternaturally in the gentle spring breeze, was a conquering angel from the heavens.

When Castiel turned to face him again, Dean understood that the alpha knew Dean was his. For long moments they regarded each other, Dean on the grass and Castiel in the water, neither speaking. Watching the alpha breathe and flex his fists by his sides, Dean grew to accept that this was no mere flare of desire but an upheaval of cosmic dimension. They stared into each other’s eyes and shared the unspoken truth of it across the distance. Dean was shocked to see, instead of disdain at finding himself saddled with an unworthy, common omega of no repute, the alpha looked… Relieved? …Joyful?

Castiel stepped forward with his eyes alight and without smiling, his visage creased in joy; he placed his hand upon his heart, and bent at the waist into a deep bow. Straightening, he said, “I shall write to the Prince Regent immediately.”

Dean merely nodded dumbly, his sense working to untangle what the Regent had to do with true mates.

After standing semi-submerged long enough that his feet must have been numb in the cold lake, Castiel slipped the buttons of his waistcoat and tossed the garment to shore before cupping the cold lake water in both hands and tossing it onto his face twice. With head and shoulders soaked, the white linen shirt transparent against his torso, the colonel took a tentative step toward the grass where Dean sat. He moved slowly, and though Dean attributed his caution to uncertain footing, it could well have been deliberation to make Dean feel safer, to let the omega know that this alpha meant no harm. After all, an unmated omega alone under the falling afternoon sun with an alpha clearly struggling to rein in his desire was a circumstance to warrant some caution, indeed.

Dean, for his part, also remained very still and held Castiel’s gaze. It was enough of a gesture to make his intent quite clear to the alpha. He would not back away from this.

Almost to himself, as if thinking aloud, Colonel Milton repeated the words, “I shall write to the Prince Regent immediately.”

Dean realized that because of their entanglement with the crown, the Regent would have to give his blessing for them to marry.

“I hope to gain his leave to speak to your brother when he returns from his honeymoon.” The colonel added, more directly to Dean. “Until then, Dean, I should very much like to… have the opportunity to become acquainted beyond the capacity of working together.”

Dean’s eyes widened, and his heart kicked up at hearing his given name fall from his alpha’s lips. Castiel must have thought Dean’s expression belied a fear of such an enterprise because he edited the suggestion. “I mean nothing untoward. I assure you. Perhaps we might lunch together daily, amongst friends, of course?”

Dean swallowed. “I’m flattered, sir,” he said judiciously. “I usually lunch in the back kitchen with Ellen and Claire.”

“Oh.” Castiel looked down and lifted one of his dragon-embroidered socks from the grass.

“No, I mean--” Dean attempted to redirect what was obviously a miscommunication. “Ellen is the cook. She is very much like my mother once was. And Claire is like a sister.”

Castiel looked up, the light returning to his eyes in an instant. He stepped gracefully into the sock without losing his balance. “Perhaps Ellen would permit me to lunch there as well?”

Dean couldn’t stop a grin from taking over his mouth as he replied, “As far as I’m aware, sir, you outrank everyone in the house, save the princess and the duchess. No one needs permit you to lunch where you will.”

Castiel’s brow furrowed. “I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I mind overly about rank and such things.”

Dean hurried to cover his error. “Not at all, Colonel. You’re very proper at all times.”

Castiel stepped forward on his single stockinged foot, “Dean—” He stopped when he noticed Dean tense as he drew close. Standing still, he attempted to correct Dean’s miscomprehension. “Mr. Winchester, I think you might agree that I would be a fool not to defer, at least, to the woman who keeps me fed. I shall ask Ellen’s permission, of course.”

Dean couldn’t stop a fascinated smile from suffusing his features at Castiel's humility. Castiel spent some moments replacing his boots and jacket, and though Dean was somewhat loath to don his again, he admitted that as the sun traveled lower and the breeze picked up, it was necessary to replace his coat as well. Finally the colonel picked up his hat and stick, and they began to make their way back toward the castle.

When they came across the normally solitary vicar speaking to a heavily pregnant man surrounded by small children in the only outlying cottage on this side of the lake, they stopped to greet him, and Dean handed a bright penny to each child before pulling a walnut, of all things from his pocket. The vicar, having evidently concluded his chat with the lightly bearded omega, tipped his hat and set out toward the town while Dean introduced Castiel to the young father. “This is Chuck. He’s the closest thing the town has to a school master.”

Chuck stammered and blushed at such high praise before picking up the little girl who tugged at his trouser leg. He brushed her hair from her eyes and studiously ignored the suggestion of his standing in the town.

“All of these children are not yours, then?” Castiel asked with his brows raised high.

“Oh, no, sir. Only this one and the little soldier over there.” Chuck pointed to the skinniest child in a group wielding stick swords and bandying blows, their ragged clothes patched with burlap in strategic places. “I mind the others while their parents are in the fields. They should be coming to collect them soon.”

Dean showed the walnut to the girl in Chuck’s arms and she watched, mesmerized, as Dean wound a tiny key at the seam of the shell. The walnut opened in miniscule jerking jumps to slowly reveal a tiny carved squirrel inside it spinning round to the soft whir of invisible gears. The babe’s eyes lit up in delight, and she reached out a gentle finger to touch the toy. Dean snapped the shell shut quick-as-you-please, making her squeal and turn her face into her daddy’s neck, but still she giggled. Dean handed the toy over, and her awed little smile of elation and her gentle tiny fingers spoke volumes.

“Chuck keeps the ones that are too little to stay at home or who don’t have older siblings to mind them,” Dean explained. “Since the estate currently has no barber surgeon and the littlest ones are wont to injure themselves on the hearths or tools when they’re home alone, Chuck keeps them to save them from hurting themselves.”  
Castiel regarded Dean with a look akin to that on the child’s face. When Dean’s soft green eyes met his own, he cleared his throat and turned back to the pregnant omega. “And do their parents pay you for the service?”

Chuck looked aghast. “Pay me? What would they pay me? They work for food to feed their little ones, just as my own mate does in the fields. I keep the pups because someone must, after Claire’s baby died from a bad burn because there was no one to leech her.”

Castiel nodded as though this made perfect sense and bowed to Chuck and the little child in his arms before turning to walk with Dean again.

He looked to be deep in his thoughts, and their silence remained mostly intact on the path back toward the castle. However, the quiet that hung between them was comfortable and sympathetic now instead of stilted. Dean reckoned that if he had plenty to occupy his mind, then Castiel’s must have been overflowing.

Not only had a change settled between the pair of them, but also a deeper understanding had occurred to Castiel about what it would mean to be a part of Winchester. As Dean fiddled with the unspoken words flying through his mind and their footsteps stirred up a light dust on the road and the edges of the horizon pinked, he realized that they were words he had never dared to dream up, even after what had happened with Sammy: true mates.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the alpha passes a very bad night

### 

That evening Castiel took dinner in his own room, leaving Dean, who had decided to venture into the dining room to share the meal with his—with Castiel—oddly situated between Princess Daphne and the Duchess Amelia at the enormous table in the grand room with the head footman, Adam, and the butler, Ketch, serving. The strange friends whom Castiel had brought along with him were away shooting at Lord Crowley’s estate some way downriver, and even Lady Charlie was “away to fetch some hammered copper,” according to Ketch; so Dean’s much anticipated mealtime conversation with her about various wires and gadgets was suspended for the evening, to Dean’s disappointment. Dean was unconcerned with the whereabouts of Sir Rafael (and quite frankly glad of that alpha’s absence), even though it meant dining without any male company at all amidst the giddy girls. Somehow, Colonel Milton’s absence was felt most keenly of all.

The gentle ladies bantered through the meal in some secret girlish language, clearly talking about specific people without ever using their names, so Dean, understanding that he was excluded from their _tête-a-tête_ , ate virtually alone. Lost in his own thoughts, the meal was all but over when he realized he had used the same fork for every course and the same knife to cut his meat and to butter his bread. Mortified at his flagrant misstep in table manners, he felt obliged to eat absolutely everything on his plate so as not to appear wasteful and frivolous with the household goods in front of Ketch and Adam. His belly was achingly full when he belatedly remembered the sow out back with her piglets that would have wanted his table scraps. If he had a shiny penny for every time he was filled with mortification during that meal for how he sat, how he ate, how he wallowed in his thoughts—especially for assuming Castiel would be as eager as he was to spend more time together—well, Dean’s pockets would be heavy, indeed.

When the dinner was finally concluded, which Dean only knew because Ketch stopped trying to refill his wine glasses, and the ladies got to their feet, he sighed in relief and stood stiffly, bowing to them as they retired to the parlor to embroider or whatever ladies did while the gentlemen lingered at the table to smoke. Dean did not smoke, so he remained standing after they had left the room. He had sat too long at table and was weary in his bones from his late traverse through the estate with the colonel and his later disappointment at the colonel’s absence.

He tried to ascend the great staircase in a fit and manly fashion, with purpose in each step, but before he reached the landing, he would admit to trudging like a twenty-year-old mule in mud. His back was tired, and he longed for a bath to rid his flesh of the day’s sweat. It was ironic that reaching his bedchamber was such a relief that he forgot to expect the scullery maid with the customary evening’s hot water for his bath; Dean had already removed his coat, cravat, and shirt when the knock came at his door.

“One moment!” he called before cursing to himself. “Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered as he pulled his shirt back over his head. By the time he had got his arms in the sleeves, the knock had sounded again, and he had no time left for his jacket before the delay would have been outright rude.

He flung open the door, and Claire, the young kitchen maid who had, according to Chuck, lost a baby last year, was there with his two kettles of hot water held aloft by thick oven mitts. Her face displayed distress so he reached immediately to unburden her of the likely heavy kettles, but she backed away sharply. “Milord, you’ll burn your hands!”

Dean shirked away and tucked his offending hands under his arms to prevent himself from making a dire mistake, but still he scolded her gently. “Claire, you know that I’m no lord. Come inside with those.”

“Well, if you’re no lord, I don’t know how to address you, sir. We was told you’re in charge of everyone in the house but Lady Celeste and His Grace, but then them two spoiled girls said not, so we—.”

“His Grace? Do you mean Sam?” Dean puzzled as he trailed her to the bathing closet and supervised, well out of the way, as she decanted the boiling water into his copper tub. How could Sam have come home without his having heard about it?

“Of course not, sir. Your brother ain’t here, yet, is he? I mean His Grace, the colonel, lying miserable in that other room like his life be ending.”

Dean was so entirely distracted by this new title for Castiel that it took a moment for him to realize what Claire said. When he did catch up, he asked, “You mean Colonel Milton is ill?”

“Looks that way to me. Adam brung his dinner up on a tray, and he said to fetch his bathwater straight away, so I brung that up myself, more than an hour ago, and when I knocked to bail his tub after, he just says “Come!” so I peeps in the door in case he weren’t covered like sometimes gentlemen got no sense, begging your pardon, and there he was still in his breeches and the whole of him splayed across the bed like some storybook damsel with his arm over his eyes.”

Dean closed his mouth deliberately, the vision colorful in his imagination. “Thank you, Claire,” he murmured, hardly noticing she was on her way out of the room with the empty kettles

She nodded at him, already having learned he wasn’t fond of being curtseyed at, and dragged the door shut with the toe of her boot before descending back into the kitchens.

Dean stood uncertainly for a moment, fingering his shirt button, before poking his head into the corridor. It was empty and silent, but he knew which door was Castiel’s because a single gas lamp was lit outside one door to the left. Dean ventured toward it quickly, determined to simply check on the man and confirm whether he needed a physician or not.

He knocked and called out, “Colonel— _er_ , Your Grace?”

“Dean?” came the voice through the door.

“Are you ill, sir?”

“I—” No further noise came, and Dean grew agitated. He pulled at the hair above his brow and called again.

“Colonel Milton, sir. Are you in need of a physician?”

“No!” Came the voice, already dear to Dean, but the word was no comfort.  
“May I open your door to speak to you, Your Grace?”  
A long pause followed, and then a fainter mumble rolled from the doorway, so Dean ventured to open it a hair. The room was still suffuse in yellow light from the gas lamps, as if for its occupant to read or to work, but said occupant was, as Claire had aptly reported, flung as if discarded by some giant hand across his bed.

“Your Grace, you _are_ ill. I shall send for a physician instantly!” Dean turned to the stairs, but Castiel called to stop him.

“Dean, please don’t. If I wanted a physician I should have rung the bell myself. I promise you I am not ill. There is nothing to be done for me for now.”

At hearing that, brow furrowed in confused alarm, Dean stepped inside the room, but took care to leave the door open widely. It would not do to give the maids fodder for gossip or for Ketch to jump to conclusions about the goings-on in his house.

“Oh, sir,” Dean sighed when he finally saw the problem. “Your beautiful feet!”

Dean stood at the end of Castiel’s bed regarding the bare but bloodied feet where they dangled off the mattress, kept purposefully, he was certain, from touching the linens. The skin was stripped raw from the flesh in places. Blisters that had formed to protect him, likely on the first half of their walk, had ruptured and split and spread.

Castiel snorted indignantly. “Beautiful?”

“They were before,” Dean assured him, without any thought to the impropriety of such a compliment. The omega, in his sympathy, was utterly without guile or art, simply stating a fact that he woefully mourned.

“You see why I could not come to the door.”

“I do see.”

“You see that I do not need a physician.”

Dean looked up then, from the oozing appendages to Castiel’s solemn face. “I do not see,” Dean insisted.

But he noted the alarm writ across Castiel’s features, and Dean considering the shame that might stem from calling for a physician who may be needed more acutely elsewhere for blistered feet. In the face of embarrassing his alpha, Dean relented from talk of a doctor. “I do see, but Your Grace, you must have them seen to so they might heal quickly.”

“Why do you call me that?”

Dean huffed, and waved the question away. Stirring up the air in the room, though, brought the scent of Castiel to his attention again, and Dean realized how close he was standing to this man’s bed. He stepped back, edging toward the door. “If Bobby were here, he’s got an ointment from a plant that grows way across the sea. It soothes the skin.”

“That sounds very exotic,” Colonel Milton commented, ignoring Dean’s abrupt change of subject.

The omega nodded but gave up the idea of fetching help as hopeless. Had he been at home on Glassblowers Street, where he could send a small child on the street to find Bobby’s wagon with all his jars of ointment and a bottle of wine to hand, Dean could be the one to get the special ointment and nurse Castiel through this. But alas, he was alone on a strange estate without the means to do anything at all. But a sudden inspiration struck. “I shall go to the housekeeper. She must keep salves on hand for everyday cuts and burns. If nothing else, I shall fetch some honey and anoint your feet myself.”

Castiel levered himself up from the waist so as to better see Dean as he protested all this fuss, but by the time he had reached a degree of elevation fit to argue from, Dean was gone to the household sitting room below stairs where he imagined Rowena and the others probably sat together sewing under the gas lights, now that their heavy work was done for the day. Alone again, Castiel fell back against his embroidered pillows in a huff of dismay.

Dean returned post-haste with Rowena, a small but formidable woman who ran a very tight household. She had brought Ellen along with her, and Dean barely had time to throw Castiel’s coat over his torso to prevent the women seeing him in his shirtsleeves before they marched up to his bedside.

“I see,” said Ellen. Rowena murmured an acknowledgement, as well, and prodded at the small patches of skin that were still intact on Castiel’s right foot. She moved to the bell rope, but before she could even pull it, she noticed Adam and Ketch at the ready in the corridor, and waved them inside. “Go and fetch some of your mate’s lineament he buys from the traveling man,” she instructed Ketch, who bobbed his head as though quite accustomed to taking orders from Rowena, before disappearing. To Adam, she added, “Go and help Claire fix two clean bowls-- one with those soft soap flakes and one empty. Have her bring plenty of hot water.”

Before he could leave, Ellen added, “And have little Kaia fetch all of her clean ironing for bandages.”

Adam said, “Yes ma’am,” and “Right away,” and vanished out the door.

Rowena completed her inspection of the lacerations and tutted.

“Mr. Winchester,” Ellen turned to him next, and he jumped at her direct address. He had been standing right at the colonel’s bedside, close enough to touch the man, if he had dared. Stepping back again, realizing too late he was too near Castiel for politeness, Dean waited for instructions. Ellen held up a brass key. “Take this key and fetch an unopened jar of honey from the cellar.”

Dean, flustered, bowed to her and ran off with the key.

“Well, Your Grace, has no one ever told you to listen to your body when it sends you a message?” Ellen asked.

Castiel looked contrite. “I didn’t realize the pain was sending quite such a dire warning.”

Rowena shared a knowing look with Ellen and observed, “I presume you were asserting your manly, alpha imperviousness in front of that smitten omega on your extended ramble this afternoon?”

Castiel squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. “I suppose I was. But please stop calling me ‘Grace;’ you’ve already given Dean the wrong idea. I no longer have any lands, nor rights to any titles, as you well know. I’m not even a soldier anymore, so I’ve nothing but the name I was christened with. I don’t see any of that changing so long as the Regent remains in place.”

Ellen snorted. “Well, forgive me, _Castiel_ , but any man who fought as bravely as you in the wars certainly retains his title as a soldier, at the very least. We’ll call you Colonel if you insist, but when you were in cloth napkins and the heir to this castle before your mother remarried, I cleaned your wee bum and nursed you at my own breast, so if I think you ought to be the duke moving in here instead of that pretender Sam Winchester, you’ll have to excuse me.”

Rowena spoke up to show that she was of a similar mind. “Have you come to the estate to reclaim your place, Your Grace? You know we would all support you.”

“I have not, and you mustn’t suggest such things. That’s treasonous talk. I’m here to _aid_ Sam Winchester. These lands belonged to his family too, long ago, and he is a good man. I assure you. He will be a good master to this house and this town.”

Ellen chimed back in, “I suppose if he is anything like his omega brother, he can’t help but be a good man, but it’s mighty pretentious of him to come here where we have been shut of the king’s scrutiny for decades and immediately start throwing money at the new wing of the castle and drawing an assize man’s attention to us in the meantime. As if the roofs where _we_ all sleep don’t leak, as if the fields that feed us aren’t overworked to the point there is less to reap year after year.”

Castiel shook his head. “All of the work in progress at this time was ordered by Princess Jessica. I assure you that Sam has not made a single decision pertaining to this place since he found himself in possession of it. Dean and I are both dedicated to making these situations known to the new duke as soon as he settles. In the meantime—” He was cut off by Ketch’s arrival with the lineament, followed closely by Dean with the honey and a bit of sweat on his brow from obviously rushing up all the stairs.

“I shall go and fetch the brandy for the pain, Colonel.” Rowena suggested, but Ketch stopped her. He was the butler, after all, and he would fetch it, himself. As soon as he returned with the brandy bottle and had handed it over to Rowena so she might pour some for the colonel, Ketch pulled out his little notebook to mark the bottle down for the household accounts, but he didn’t make a fuss about it. After all, Castiel could drink the cellar dry before the princess and her new husband even arrived back from their honeymoon, and Ketch would consider it a fair and fitting use of the liquor.

The room was abuzz for some time as various hands gently washed the blood from Castiel’s feet, carried away soiled linen and dirty water, cut linen into strips, soaked the strips in lineament, and applied honey.

“Hey! This lineament comes from— well, it’s the stuff made by Bobby Singer. He’s the traveling man with that old bent-eared mule? This stuff has that plant in it I was telling you about, from across the sea,” Dean said excitedly. If Castiel heard him, he was beyond talk at that point, but Ellen, despite her tiredness, patted Dean’s shoulder and smiled at the label on the jar in acknowledgement.

By the time things were said and done, Castiel’s feet were veritably mummified, and the man turned red as he muttered something to Adam about the chamber pot while Rowena ushered everyone out of the room.

Dean longed to stay and watch over Castiel as he slept, hold his hand through the pain, and comfort him through what was sure to be an uncomfortable night, but he knew it was impossible for an unmated omega to spend the night unchaperoned with an alpha. So Dean retreated to his room, his cold bathtub long forgotten, and his weary eyes itching to close.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the omega is very attentive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (medicinal drug use)

The next day, Dean rose early and practically raced down the stairs and out the back way to pick some early carrots from the kitchen garden before skipping to the stables. Adam’s mother, Kate, who tended the weeds and herbs that grew in the small beds outside the kitchen door swatted his hands but laughed as he dodged her and ran down the slope. He fed the draught horses the little treats as he greeted Mick, who was busy wrapping Nova’s foreleg in the same kind of linen he had seen applied to Castiel’s feet the night before. Beside the giant gentle mare, her erstwhile foal, Baby, who was now larger than the dam, nosed at the dirt for bits of corn forgotten by the hens. Mick hoped to breed Baby in the coming summer with a stud at Lord Crowley’s estate downriver from Winchester, but with the looks of the early sprouts in the fields, the fee for the stallion wouldn’t be gathered in time. Dean knew all of this from earlier walks down to the stables. He was drawn to the horses in a way he couldn’t explain. He had grown up too poor to be near any beasts larger than a goat, but Mick was always kind to let him comb the horses' manes and feed them tasty treats.

This morning, though, Dean was there to express his gratitude to Mick about the lineament he had donated so generously. It had not been lost on Dean how much emptier the bottle was at the end of the night than it had been when Ketch fetched it. “Thanks for the stuff you sent last night,” Dean gushed, as soon as he had the sturdy omega’s attention.

Mick rubbed Nova’s neck and gazed across the cheerful creek that cut through the paddock. “Fine morning,” he observed.

Dean sighed and straightened himself up. He knew when he was being schooled; he’d had enough of this sort of lesson in manners and tact and other such tedium from Bobby. The _de facto_ uncle had taken it upon himself to give the Winchester boys a little of what he called “manly schooling” from the time their father died, leaving them on their own. When Dean dared to wonder what gave an itinerant farrier and sometime smith like Bobby Singer the right to school anyone on anything, Bobby’s friend Rufus, who was a hostler on the road toward Winchester, said that Bobby had long ago been a valet to a duke in a castle. Bobby argued that Rufus was full of nonsense, but even so, he was loaded with arcane knowledge about tying cravats and keeping boots shiny and minding one’s manners. Dean saw the lesson Mick was handing him for what it was.

“It is,” Dean agreed. “A very fine morning. Nova and Baby look eager to plow today.”

Mick chuckled. “She’s ready for tricks, that one is,” he said, pointing to Baby. “She thinks she’s a racer, doesn’t know she’s a draught horse.”

“I think she’s fine,” Dean murmured fondly, scratching her neck. “Thank you, Mick. It was kind of you to send the lineament.”

“Twas nothing.”

“You bought it from the traveling man with the cock-eared mule, didn’t you? Bobby Singer?”

“I did.”

“He’s a fine farrier, too, you know,” Dean suggested. “Does he come down here often?”

Mick chewed on the stem of his pipe, which had apparently gone out, and said, “Not often enough. I’m sure he is a fine hand at many tasks. I seen his good tools. But you know shoeing costs coin, don’cha, lad?”

Dean looked up from Baby’s gleaming mane and allowed her to nose at his shoulder. “It might be good for a place like Winchester, don’t you think, to have a man like him settle. Do smithing and shoeing and tooling for the castle?”

Mick regarded Dean. “It would, indeed. Ain’t never seen that traveler settle, though.”

Dean grinned. “You might, Mick. Just wait til you see how things change around here by summer. You might even have the horses shod _and_ the coin leftover for Baby’s stud.”

Mick laughed, but it wasn’t a derisive, disbelieving sound. It was full of the happy hope that Dean carried with him so guilelessly.

Dean slapped Baby good-naturedly on the shoulder and took off apace back up toward the castle for some breakfast, leaving Mick watching after him and wondering if things could actually turn around in Winchester with a new duke looking out for the place.

Inside the kitchen doors, Dean paused long enough to draw a cup of cool water from the sink pump and quench his thirst. With a deep breath he continued his path into Ellen’s domain to steal a scone and whatever meat was turning the air to ambrosia. Before bursting into the hearth, though, he calmed himself; having been taught his lesson by Mick already, he didn’t need to hear it from Ellen, as well.

“Good morning, Mistress Ellen,” he greeted.

“ _Mistress_ this morning, is it, my lord?”

Dean grinned. “I’m no lord, but you are absolutely mistress of this domain.” He bowed to her very low and stole a muffin from her bowl. “But in all sincerity, thank you. Your heroics last evening were above and beyond the call of your duty.”

Ellen paused to smirk at Dean as half the muffin disappeared into his face. “It seems to me that this level of gratitude ought to be coming from His Gra—Colonel Milton, rather than from a man who’s only known him for a fortnight at best.”

Dean raised a brow at her. “A week and a day, actually, if you count the wedding lunch. But, I assure you that _Colonel_ Milton’s health is of especial concern to me.”

“Oh, is that so, little omega? Look at you blush.” Ellen smiled archly, but Dean straightened up to his full height and schooled his face into a poor facsimile of sternness.

“That’s of no import to you, Mistress. Instead, I pray you explain to me the odd occurrence of several of this house calling Colonel Milton by a greater title.”

It was Ellen’s turn to laugh, “For someone who claims not to be a lord, you certainly can talk like one when you want to, can’t you?” She busied herself with a tray of tea, muffins, sweet cream, marmalade, and butter.

“Add two portions of that meat, if the tray is for the colonel, and I shall take it up myself,” Dean suggested.

“You’ll do better than that,” she murmured as she added a second cup and saucer to the tray. You’ll change those dressings on the poor man’s feet while you’re there with him.”

Dean’s expression changed to horror. “I couldn’t!” he protested. “Me, touch an alpha’s naked feet in his own bedroom!”

Ellen threw her head back and laughed at Dean’s genuine distress. “One thing I can say for your upbringing, lad, you’re decent, through and through.” She tilted her head and regarded him. “How old are you, Dean?”

“I’m five and twenty.”

“Ever kissed anyone?”

Dean made note that he had a bit of dirt on his boots from his foray to the stables. “A time or two,” he muttered.

“Omega like you, right?”

Dean blushed to the tips of his ears and ducked his head. “Yes.”

“Now, it’s no call for you to use that small voice. I know you’ve spent your years raising up that brother of yours. You’re decent and hardworking, and you ought to be proud to be able to look your future mate in the eye and vow yourself truly and without taint,” she soothed.

Dean nodded.

“That man upstairs,” she continued, “Castiel. He’s, oh, he must be thirty or more by now.” She dashed a hand across her brow. “Can it really be so long? I was his nursemaid when he was a wee thing.”

She had Dean’s full attention now.

“That was when he was a duke and heir to this very pile, and I was seventeen and still round from my first babe, though he had died in his crib after living scarce a week.”

“Oh Ellen, I’m sorry about your baby.” Dean murmured.

“I had Jo two summers after that, so you don’t need to feel sorry for me. My hands were full with the wee duke for over a year. But his father, the old duke, was killed, and his mother married again to man who turned out to be a traitor, or so the king decided, and when the crown took his lands and his head, the duchess was left to her sister’s house as a beggar.”

Dean was rapt. “Castiel-- a _duke_ ,” he whispered, marveling.

She nodded. “He was raised up as a page or a stable lad in his aunt’s home, with all her sons using him to fetch and carry, or,“ Ellen added in a colder voice, “for target practice in their games, so as soon as he was old enough, he went to the wars to protect himself. Imagine that! Soldiering was safer, he said, because at least then he would know when an attack was coming.”

“Castiel was in the wars?”

“He was. Why else would he be called a colonel? And he made a name for himself in France, too. I used to listen to the newspaper stories down in the town tavern before the publican boarded up his premises and moved to Crowley Corner where there’re more folk. Nearly the whole town would turn out just to hear Castiel’s name recited in the battle accounts as they sipped their beer. He got himself made a captain, then a colonel, led men for years, took care of his soldiers through all kinds of hell, and came back a changed man, himself.”

“He said he was a scribe. A bookkeeper.”

“I reckon he might be that, now, but inside, he is still a leader and a fighter and a caretaker. A finer man, a fiercer protector, and a gentler husband you couldn’t ask for.”

Dean startled. “Husband!”

“I see what I see,” Ellen said, smoothing Dean’s rumpled collar. “Now you take care with removing the linens from his wounds. Wet them good with warm water -–not hot—if they’ve stuck.”

Dean nodded and hefted the tray, his earlier misgivings about propriety forgotten and his mind busy with unraveling the mystery of Colonel Milton, former Duke of Winchester.

Dean balanced the laden tray on his hip and knocked at Colonel Milton’s door. He heard a grumble from within and let himself in without further fuss. He knew a maid had probably been in already this morning to put hot water in his ewer and empty the chamber pot.

“Good morning, Colonel,” he said brightly, leaving the door open widely for propriety’s sake. The man on the bed growled a bit, and Dean could see that his eyes were deeply shadowed and his brow drawn in pain. “Rough night?”

“Very.”

“I wonder if the household keeps opium on hand. I didn’t think to ask last night because you were so stoic.” He settled the tray on the side of the bed and took up the teapot to pour it.

“I’ve had worse,” Castiel muttered.

“Still, you shouldn’t suffer if there’s a remedy. I’ll ask. But either way, you need some food if you’re going to heal.”

Castiel sighed and pulled himself forward, allowing Dean to prop a pillow behind his back. If the alpha scented Dean in the process, well, he was only human. Castiel took his teacup and allowed Dean to place his plate of bacon on his lap.

“How do you want your muffin?” Dean asked.

“I can do it,” the grumpy alpha snapped.

Dean stood back and waited. Castiel stretched a hand toward the tray but couldn’t reach the muffins, butter, and marmalade without shifting his feet for leverage, which caused him to hiss. He sat back and looked at Dean with a defeated expression. Dean smirked and held up the marmalade with a question on his brow.

“Butter first, please,” Castiel mumbled, and Dean buttered the muffin and added a generous dollop of the marmalade before handing the little plate to his patient.

Once he saw that Castiel was eating, Dean fed himself from the tray, and if he moaned around his first bite of bacon, neither of them commented on it, although Castiel secretly cataloged the sound to mull over when he felt better.

After the meal, Dean was about to leave to ask about opium and some fresh water and linens when Castiel called, “Wait. Just pull the bell, Dean. This is what it’s there for.”

Dean regarded the embroidered bell rope with some trepidation before giving it a gentle tug. Within moments, Rowena appeared at the doorway with neatly folded towels in her hands.

“Yes, sirs?”

“Good morning, Rowena,” Dean preambled.

“Good morning, sir.”

“I was wondering if there are more supplies for Colonel Milton’s feet?”

“Of course. I shall send the girls up with them right away. Will there be anything else, sirs?”

“Rowena, I want to thank you for the time and work you put in last night. It was more than kind of you to help with Colonel Milton’s injury.” This statement from Dean caused Castiel to look up contritely.

“I must agree with Dean. I thank you most humbly for your efforts, Rowena.”

She curtseyed with the hint of a smile on her face. “Twas nothing at all, sirs.”

She began to turn to leave when Dean stopped her again by asking, “One other thing. The colonel won’t say so, but he has been in quite a bit of pain from the circumstance, and I wonder if you keep opium on hand?”

Rowena nodded. “Of course, we have laudanum. I should have thought of it last evening. I shall bring it myself after giving the girls their instructions.”

“Thank you,” Dean said, while Castiel merely smiled tightly at her.

Once she was gone the woeful colonel prodded, “Ringing the bell wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“It’s ludicrous.”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “Give me another muffin, Dean.”  
Dean smiled at the sound of his name on Castiel’s lips and did as he was bid.

It was nearly an hour later when the morning tray had been cleared away, and Rowena had generously dosed Castiel, and Dean had already soaked the wraps off of his feet when a shadow crossed the doorway. “Cassie! What’s all this?”

Dean looked up from his task of applying a thin layer of honey to the lesions. These were Castiel’s friends, back from their shooting foray, evidently. Dean cursed internally at being caught without his coat on in Castiel’s bedroom while the man himself was (presumably) bare beneath his nightshirt. It was scandalously improper, but since Dean’s fingers were sticky with honey there was little he could do to rectify the circumstance.

“Gabriel, Balthazar, how was your shooting?” Castiel asked drowsily.

“Fine, brother. Fine. We brought some fat pheasants for dinner.”

Castiel grimaced and replied, “I shall look forward to plucking the buckshot from my teeth.”

“Oh come, now Cassie,” Gabriel groused. “You know we are better marksmen than that! But do tell us why our handsome host is washing your feet like the Magdalena. Is this a service on special offer for all guests?” The man waggled his eyebrow and laughed.

Dean snorted at the unlikely comparison, but it was cut off by Castiel’s sharp growl and even sharper lurch forward. “Do not insult Dean; do not think the thoughts you are insinuating.” He said it without raising his voice, but he stated the words slowly and deliberately, the deadly intent of the threat in them loud and plain. The alpha growl in his voice caused Dean to back up against the side table and lower his eyes, even though he was not the one being addressed.

The man Dean believed was Gabriel, Lord Milton, held out his palms in surrender and backed away a step, too. “I misunderstood, Cassie. You surely can see how the tableau presented here might beckon certain conclusions.”

“I do not see any such thing, Gabriel. I insist that you not only apologize to Dean and get the hell out of my room, but refrain from such objectification of anyone in future, regardless of what you assume you see.”

Lord Milton swallowed as his brother Lord Balthazar closed his gaping mouth and backed toward the doorway in silence.

Lord Milton turned to Dean, whose eyes were still lowered as he stood back from the washing bowl with his sticky hands held out awkwardly. Gabriel cleared his throat in an attempt to get Dean to look him in the eye for his forthcoming speech. “Dean Winchester, I am humbly sorry to have implied something untoward, as you are clearly rendering aid to our good friend and dear brother. I thank you for your care, and I hope to become better acquainted with you during our stay here in hopes I might one day be admitted to the good graces of a man whose is so obviously of esteemed value to our Castiel.” He bowed and added, “Your humble servant, sir,” before clearing out.

Lord Balthazar, seeking safe passage as well, also bowed before following Gabriel out and saluted Dean with, “Your humble servant.”

Dean bowed awkwardly, mumbling thanks, a second too late, but he didn’t know how else to handle such a situation.

For his part, Castiel was leaning far forward in his seat on his bed, stretching toward Dean with his whole being, eyes blown dark from the opium and nostrils flared from his anger as he worked to breathe it away and recapture his earlier peace. “Dean. My dear Dean, I am sorry for Gabriel’s insolence. Please alert me if anyone who is here on my account is ever less than a gentleman toward you.”

“It’s not your fault, sir.” He replied, voice shaking to his utter frustration. “Now calm yourself. I am nearly done with your fresh bandages.”

“Please, leave the bandages. Come closer.”

Dean took a deep breath and turned to the water bowl instead to wash the honey from his fingers. He dried them on a towel and moved the bandages closer to Castiel so he could begin draping the clean cloths over his patient’s feet.

Castiel moaned before Dean had even touched him, which made Dean want to look up to Castiel’s face again, but he dared not for fear of seeing the anger directed toward him. There was a tone of desperation in the man’s voice. “Dean, I’m sorry I frightened you.”

“Didn’t,” Dean said, eyes on the feet again. If the colonel kept using his given name, he would soon melt into a hot puddle of desire.

“Then why won’t you look at me?” Castiel asked in a small voice laced with hurt.

Dean finally looked up, and there it was. Unmasked and raw from laudanum and emotion, the look of bald and overweening adoration on Castiel’s face was enough to make Dean’s hands shake and his stomach churn. No one had ever looked at Dean this way. No one had ever shown him bare affection, not since his mother had died, not since little Sammy had trusted Dean with his heart’s secrets as a small boy. In all the years Dean had spent raising up his brother to be a strong alpha, to be a good student, to be a young man poised to escape the life of poverty and degradation they had known all their lives; in all the lonely years since knowing he was nothing but a poor omega and believing he would rather die alone than be some rutting alpha’s bitch; in all his wildest dreams in the throws of heats and in the shame of the days that followed them, Dean had never dared to imagine a face like Castiel’s, a man like Castiel, a heart like his, belonging to him. It shook Dean to his very core, and he fell to his knees at Castiel’s bedside and took the alpha’s hands in his own as wetness clouded his vision and he was so overcome with want and love and hope that he could scarcely breathe.

“Alpha,” he whispered. “I—it—there are no words, sir.”

“I know, omega.” Castiel murmured, prying one hand away from Dean’s to touch the omega’s face. And Dean was surprised when moist fingertips trailed down from the corner of his eyes. Was he crying? Dean sniffed sharply and tried to stand, but Castiel held him fast. “Don’t. Let yourself feel. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

Dean stayed, transfixed on those blue eyes, on the dark scruff adorning Castiel’s jaw—unshaved since the morning before—, on that raw emotion etched there between the curve of his lips, pink from chewing on them through his painful night, and the serenity now resting peacefully across his brow that told Dean that his alpha was in control of this powerful emotion, welcoming of it, even. And as Dean dared, for the first time in his existence, to dream of a lifetime of this—these soft looks and low voices, these warm hands and this powerful trust—he admitted without reservation that it was, indeed, beautiful.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the mates converse and the scientist is nosy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (medicinal drug use)

### 

All that day, Dean stayed with Castiel. Through the first hours of the laudanum haze, Dean was content to watch Castiel sleep. Later, they played chess and read poems aloud, making each other laugh at the ghastliest rhymes they could find, and they traded stories about their lives. Castiel told Dean of moving around as a young boy, how each time his mother remarried he found himself lowered in station, and though he was too young to understand why and what his own loss of status had meant, he was canny enough to be aware that he was always a little hungrier, always slightly more invisible to the occupants of the houses. Constant motion had made Castiel long to settle somewhere permanently and raise a big family, to be able to provide a simple but stable life for his own sons so that they never had to endure stepbrothers like Gabriel and Balthazar.

“They’re your family?”

“Yes, after a fashion. My mother married again after my father was killed, and they are her second husband’s sons.”

“And they were unkind to you?” Dean remembered Ellen’s story and bristled at having Castiel’s bullies under the same roof he slept beneath.

“As much as spoiled boys are. It was my own cousins who really taught me to fight, though. Still, Gabe and Bal taught me the tricks that kept me alive through the years I lived with my aunt. Don’t worry, though. They have grown up. And so have I,” Castiel added. “And I have learned to inflict a great deal of damage in a thousand small ways since I was a young boy who let others bully him.”

Dean coughed and chose not to ask for more details about that as he felt the power rolling from his alpha. “Having a brother was the best thing for me,” Dean redirected. “I don’t know how I would have fared without Sammy in my life.”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed. “I do remember looking up to them, at first. It was novel to suddenly have older brothers. I thought it delightful to share a name with them when my mother informed me that I would be Milton thenceforth. But I soon learned that being a third son of a moderately successful house was quite different from being the only son of a ducal estate.”

Dean did not know what to say to that, so he merely let himself be lost in the blue depths of Castiel’s gaze until the alpha smiled and bid him, “Tell me about your childhood with Sam.”

Dean recaptured his wits from his dreamlike meditation on his lover’s blue eyes and recounted the earliest years he could remember, when his mother’s soft hands had been a comfort before her death, and how afterward, his father could no longer afford their snug little apartment, how each time their father had moved him and baby Sammy to a new neighborhood within the vast capital city, he had found they were lowered by the move in every way: poorer, dirtier, hungrier. It had made Dean long to be away from his father, and when John Winchester had died, Dean had felt responsible for it. He still did, in some ways. Maybe if Dean had not left their little room in the city so often to go out sweeping up ashes for the pennies that the thankless work would earn him; maybe if he hadn’t been mudlarking with his toddling little brother in tow, maybe John would not have died alone, drowned in the gin he could no longer swallow.

Dean stopped talking abruptly and lifted his teacup for a sip, but found it was dry. Turning the pot upside down revealed they had long since drained it. Dean looked longingly toward the door and contemplated fetching a pitcher of water, but Castiel saw all of this play out in his true mate’s mind and curtailed his action. Breaking the spell of quiet that had been conjured by the sharing of painful memories, Castiel directed Dean, “Ring the bell, Dean.”

“I’m perfectly capable—” Dean began to rise.

“If you go and fetch your own water, the footmen will finish their shoe shining and their silver polishing and get bored. They’ll take up smoking or dicing or cards or whoring. They’ll get into mischief and eventually lose their positions here, either for getting up to too much mischief, or because of some terrible scandalous behavior. They will be cast out into the world without any means of feeding their poor, hungry children. They will turn to pickpocketing or burglary--or worse! Do you want that on your conscience, Dean?”

The omega only shook his head with wide eyes, unable to tell if the alpha was joking. After a moment Castiel repeated, “Ring the bell.”

Dean frowned at the dire extremity of the slippery slope the household staff must balance upon, but did as he was bid.

It was Adam who arrived with a pitcher of cool mint water and a plate of Ellen’s biscuits. “Ellen knew you would ring eventually, sirs.”

Castiel thanked him while Dean merely scrutinized his youthful face. Could Adam really have small children to feed? Claire seemed quite young, too, and it was rather shocking she had lost a baby last year, so he supposed Adam might be a father. Unaware of Dean’s mental scrutiny, the footman took away the tea things and left.

Once they were refreshed, Castiel prompted Dean once again. “It must have had its delights, passing your whole youth in the heart of the capital?”

“It was grand when I was very small, when our mother was still alive. My father was away in the wars during the summers before Sam was born as well as when he was very tiny. In winters, things were not as nice because he was home with us and we were cramped indoors together so much in the dark and cold, but summers were lovely. Ma would trade her sewing for fresh fruits at the market and bake pies for us at the bake house while I roamed the alleys with the bigger boys and learned to fight and swear.” Dean grinned at the memory, and Castiel smiled at him. “I had nimble little fingers, so early on I learned to sew like Ma in the light of the fireside in winter, and I got a job sweeping chimneys when she was too occupied with baby Sammy and washing nappies day and night to get much sewing done. I was able to earn enough each day to fetch home a measure of meal and milk, and I knew everyone in the neighborhood by name because I went into their houses and shops and climbed into their hearths and swept away the ash to sell to the soap makers. I often found treasures in the ashes, too. One day I found a broken toy: a clockwork flower with painted petals that were meant to open and close, but the mechanism was broken. I kept it, and when there was enough light, I tinkered with it until I realized it was missing a little pin. I took one of Ma’s sewing pins and spent days filing it down on the rocks under the bridge where the washerwomen work, until it was small enough to fit the toy. You should have seen Sammy’s eyes light up when I gave it to him. I was so proud.”

Castiel’s expression was not far off from what little Sam’s must have been that day as he listened to Dean’s tale. The room, by then, was suffuse with the early spring sunset, casting golden halos around the room. Neither man could remember passing a better day within the confines of a single room in their lives.

Thus the day passed until Gabriel, in a compensatory mood, had the idea to carry a table into Castiel’s bedroom and host a small dinner party that evening, which Castiel agreed to, since the scheme had been fabricated in good faith. Soon Adam and another footman, Kevin, carried a round card table up the stairs and set about arranging it beside the darkened window. Chairs appeared, linens manifested, Lord Balthazar and Lady Charlie arrived with broad smiles and boisterous enthusiasm. The young ladies chose to dine alone in the princess’ chambers rather than attend so informal a function in a man’s bedroom, and the assize man that Castiel had brought to the house, Rafael, was not included in the party; if Dean thought this strange, no one else commented on it, so the five of them made a happy gathering.

For the occasion, Castiel kicked everyone out of the room before the food arrived so that he could don trousers and avoid sitting at table like some barbarian in his nightshirt. No one afforded him time to shave, though, and declaring dinner delayed quite enough, everyone agreed they would forgive the man his two-day beard, if only he allowed them some bread and wine. He good-naturedly hobbled to the table in his bandages and took up his seat without further ado.

Seated together in a circle, laughter was buoyant and conversation bordered on titillating, with Lord Balthazar having to remind both Lady Charlie and Lord Milton of their manners in mixed company, at different moments. Throughout it all, Ketch, Adam, and the second footman, Kevin, carried the soup and fat pheasants and cakes up the stairs as though it was not a bit out of the ordinary for them to be called upon in such a manner. Everything they served was up to and beyond Ellen’s usual standard, and Castiel even commented on the lack of buckshot in the birds. Dean passed an enjoyable meal beside his true mate and in the company of new budding friendships, and all earlier missteps were already forgotten.

The following day, as his feet improved, Castiel ventured out of his room, even condescending to walk in the soft spring grass in his bare feet. Dean walked with him but did not tarry all day at Castiel’s side, as he did not want to abandon his forays into the little town. In the following days, as the colonel rode to neighboring estates to greet their masters on behalf of Winchester, Dean spent his time in his workshop with his old tools and some odds and ends he had found to tinker with, including scraps of copper wire from Lady Charlie and a silver spoon that had broken in two when one of the footmen had used it in a so-called magic trick! He missed having a smithy nearby to flatten his pieces for him, but luckily copper was quite soft, and he had plenty of time to work the silver without a rush. He let it sit in a drawer for the time being.

Dean also made himself useful to Lady Charlie when she needed someone to reach up high or climb into a fireplace. He was not nearly small enough to fit up a chimney as he had done as a lad, but he was not squeamish of ash and spiders and had no problem even reaching his bare arm blindly into dark spaces to feel around for Charlie’s dropped tools or wires. He was interested in the electrics as well. It seemed fantastical to think she might be able to light the house without flame, to brighten even the dimmest room without the yellow glare of gas or the soot of candles. She described to him the way the chandeliers in the grand ballroom would sparkle without the maids having to remove each crystal and boil the wax off of them after a grand party.

Lady Charlie also made Dean laugh. Quite a lot. Her bright red hair and easy grin made her charming and easy to warm to, and soon he thought of her as the little sister he had always wanted.

She certainly treated him like a brother, ever punching his shoulder or teasing him mercilessly for some mild misstep. Often they lost hours together twisting fine wires and laughing at the tiny cuts on their fingertips.

“I could not help but notice the tension between you and Castiel,” Charlie began one afternoon, apropos of nothing.

“Cas—Colonel Milton is very interested in the insights I have managed to gain about the local community.”

Charlie leveled him with an unimpressed look. “Try again, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean was quiet for several moments, and Charlie waited patiently for his stoic veneer to crack.

“He is my true mate,” he said in a low voice, as though the curtains might overhear and spread the gossip.

The noise that emitted from Lady Charlie’s throat in the next moment was not unlike that which a falcon makes when calling to its mate: high pitched, loud, and terrifying.

Dean could not avert his startled eyes, so he saw her vibrate and then pounce. She hugged him.

Reader, she _hugged_ him!

Dean hadn’t been hugged since Sam’s wedding day, and the comforting touch of another human being caused tears to prick at his eyes. He felt himself melt into the touch as his arms lifted to wrap around her back. She may have been an alpha, but she was also a woman, and Dean hadn’t been hugged by a female, or indeed by anyone other than his brother, in ten years, at least. She was small and soft, and her scent, though tinged by alpha musk, was comforting. She squeezed him tightly and then stepped back with a wild grin on her face and light in her eyes that made Dean imagine the electricity they were trying to create.

“I’m so glad for you,” she declared.

Dean cleared his throat and allowed his smile to crease the corners of his eyes.

“I just knew he’d be a fool for those green eyes of yours the first time I saw you,” she mused. “Has he kissed you? Of course he has—a soldier is not timid. He looks like he would be an amazing kisser. Have you had a bit of a tumble, yet? It must be a challenge not to touch each other every moment.”

“Lady Charlie!” Dean couldn’t hide the shock on his face and the redness that covered him to the very tips of his ears. “Lady Charlie, we have not,” he whispered harshly. “Castiel – Colonel Milton would never. I can’t believe you would—He must write to the Regent first, for permission, since he is a cousin to the crown, and even then, Sam must be consulted, and—”

“But _True Mates_!” she whined.

“Yes, but he has some history with the king or the regent, or something, as you well know.”

“But _Truuuue Maaates_!”

Dean ran his hand through his hair.

“You’ve at least kissed him, though, right? Sealed the deal?”

“Of course not, Lady Charlie.”

She groaned.

“Either one or both of you is too reserved for anyone’s own good,” she pouted.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the omega learns to ride a horse before biology rudely intrudes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (heat/rut, medicinal drug use)

### 

When Castiel deemed himself fully healed and ready to don his boots again (which Adam had taken and stretched out for him by inserting warm stones from the hearth and steaming the leather), he declared he wanted to spare himself a full morning’s walk by riding the route that he and Dean had traversed previously. Gabriel thought it a capital idea and volunteered to join his brother. Since Castiel did not currently have a horse stabled at Winchester, it was decided he would make use of Lord Balthazar’s destrier, since that gentleman needed to write letters that day. Dean could not subdue the burning jealousy he felt that not only would the colonel ride their route (on a horse!) he would do so with Gabriel, Lord Milton.

He pasted on an affable smile and stood at the back doorway to bid his mate a modest farewell on his way to the stables. “Wait,” he said, when they had barely set foot on the track that led downhill. He detoured to the garden and pulled up a pair of carrots, each of which he snapped in two. Handing the four treats to Castiel he said, “One for each of your horses, and one for Baby and one for Nova.”

“Baby and Nova?” Castiel smiled curiously, taking the roots in his gloved hand.

“The draught horses. They’re beautiful and majestic ladies, so kiss them for me before you mount up.”

Castiel’s brow furrowed. “Aren’t you coming, Mr. Winchester?”

Dean paused. “I—I suppose if your horses walk the route I can keep up alongside.”

Gabriel snorted, but Castiel ignored him. “Can either Baby or Nova take a saddle?”

Dean drew up short and answered that he didn’t know. He took Castiel’s proffered elbow, however, and allowed himself to be led to the stables. When Baby saw him, she hugged the paddock fence to get close enough to Dean to nose at his pockets. He laughed and took one of the carrot pieces from Castiel to feed to her.

“She likes you,” Castiel grinned, scratching at her shoulder.

“She likes carrots.”

In that moment Mick appeared from the barn behind them and said good afternoon with a wave of his pipe. Lord Milton led his horse out from its stall and began to brush him down for saddling. The beast looked tiny next to Baby. Mick and Gabriel chatted about how much the horses had eaten in the week and other such details until Castiel interrupted to ask, “Will Baby take a saddle?”

“Aye,” the groom eyed Castiel, perhaps assessing his quality as a rider. “No shoes, though.”

“It’s been rather wet, hasn’t it?” Castiel asked, as though everyone hadn’t heard the thunder all morning.

“Aye,” Mick answered again. “She likes the mud.”

Castiel beamed at Dean. “There, you see. You’ll ride Baby.”

Dean’s eyes went wide as dinner plates. “Me?”

“Of course.”

“Sir, I cannot.”

“Why not? Draught horses are known to be sure-footed beasts, and she likes you.”

“I’ve never so much as sat a horse in my life, sir.”

“There must be a first time for everything,” the colonel answered cheerfully and took the brush from Gabriel to begin preparing the giant mare for riding. Mick whistled for the stable boy, and some bickering ensued between the kid and Gabriel before all three horses were readied, and Mick brought out a mounting step for Dean to reach Baby’s irons and mount. Castiel stood behind his novice mate, doing his best to calm Dean’s nerves. Even Baby’s manners were impeccable, as she stood patient and ready for her rider. Gabriel mounted from the grass with a slow swing of the leg that looked simplicity itself. His example gave Dean the confidence to try it, and though he was certain the action lacked all possible grace, he managed to get into the saddle and settle his feet without incident. Castiel handed over his reins with a smile and a wink that set Dean’s heart fluttering before mounting his own horse that Mick had readied with brisk efficiency. Castiel made it look so effortless that Dean suspected he might secretly be a centaur.

Dean leaned forward to whisper to Baby that she had better act like a proper lady on the tour. Her ears twitched, and without Dean so much as tapping her flank, she fell into line behind Castiel, heading for the town.

The ride was enjoyable. For his part, Castiel spoke much more to the people they met along the way, this time. Gabriel was a charming fellow, frequently offering a joke to make children laugh when he was not scribbling mysteriously into his little book. Dean handed around pennies, as usual, though his horse was so tall and the children so small, that he threatened to unseat himself several times in the process. Without a mounting block, however, he was loath to dismount and find himself grounded without means of continuing the ride.

Dean once looked behind him where Lord Milton rode, bringing up the rear of their short train, and saw that even while in motion the man wrote with a thin pencil in a notebook, not unlike the one Dean carried. Dean puzzled it over and eventually determined that the man must be making note of the abject poverty of so many of Winchester’s people, which must be shocking to a gentleman like him.

The trip was completed quickly, with a brief stop at the lake to allow the horses to drink. Dean was almost unseated again when Baby walked shoulder-deep into the water to refresh herself, and he panicked that they would drown. Castiel assured him that not only could horses swim, but also that she was standing firmly on all four feet and was not about to unseat him.

Each evening in those days, Castiel walked Dean to his bedroom at night after lingering over their dinner and their brandy. And he stood in the glow of the gas lamps with his hands clasped behind his back but his face near enough to Dean’s to murmur his wishes for golden dreams. On one particular night, however, when they were both tired from a late meal after a gentle ride to the lake and back, Castiel could not restrain himself from asking, “Dean, may I kiss you?” And although he did not move his hands forward to clasp Dean in his warm embrace, the omega stepped back and raised his hands as if to stop from falling, so shaken was he. His face betrayed both his desire and his dismay. He looked to Castiel’s lips, ever temptingly pink, and then peered into the alpha’s eyes.

“Have you heard back from the regent?” Dean whispered, unable to find his voice.

Castiel’s face fell. “I have not,” he whispered in return.

Dean sighed shallowly, for his breath would hardly come. “I have no fear of my brother’s agreement to this match, but suppose Sam is not even able to give us his blessing because of some unforeseen objection from the regent?” Dean ran both hands through his hair in deep frustration as Castiel looked away in exquisite devastation. “Castiel,” Dean voiced the name aloud for sincerity’s sake and took his alpha’s hand when he read the expression of mingled hurt and hope on the man’s face. “I cannot taste your lips tonight only to learn later that I must never taste them again. It would destroy me.”

The colonel’s blue eyes fixed Dean in place against his door, “You love me, then?”

“Oh, Castiel.” Dean was the one who lifted his palm then to rest against his true mate’s cheek. “Oh, how could I not?”

For a brief moment, the world shifted and it felt as though Castiel were leaning in to capture Dean’s mouth; and it would have surprised no one if Dean had allowed it, then. He was already dizzy from the brandy and his alpha’s scent crowding him in the corridor. Instead, though, the desperate alpha dragged his nose over the top of Dean’s collar and scented him, leaving a hot brand of desire on Dean’s throat, which the omega knew would be his ruin.

“Goodnight, my dear one,” Castiel murmured before stepping down to his own door and disappearing through it, leaving Dean standing alone and roiling in a tempest of desire.

That night Dean slept poorly. Although a light rain softly tapped against the window, a sound that would normally lull him into deep slumber, Dean tossed and turned, kicking off his blanket and his sheet, throwing his pillows to the floor, and eventually doffing his nightshirt.

His skin felt hot and clammy, and he shivered with chill until he dove under a cover and felt suffocated. It was the early haze of gray clouds lit from behind, causing his window glass to glow faintly, that brought him to alertness enough to realize he was in heat.

“Oh damn,” he huffed to his lonely room.

Once he acknowledged the truth, he felt it in his bones: the ache in his weary limbs and lower back, the throb in his groin, the dampness between his legs. Everything about a heat was discomfort and shame, and Dean lay as still as possible with a pillow over his hot face for as long as he could stand it.

Then he sat up abruptly. The wild idea to run naked into the early morning fog and drizzle seemed an excellent solution, but as soon as he got to his feet, the dizziness overcame him and he collapsed onto the wooden chair beside his writing table.

He thought, muzzy-headed though he was, of several possible solutions, the best of which was to traverse the corridor to Castiel’s door and let himself into that room where his pain and want could be assuaged. But he knew that in such a way lay danger, sweet though it might be.

No, the soundest choice was to ring the bell and ask for the second footman, Kevin, who Dean was fairly certain, was omega. If he wasn’t, then Claire would do to bring him bath water, but despite their shared designations, it still would not be altogether well in a house as fine as this one to impose frequent visits to his bathing closet upon a female.

Thus decided, he rang the bell, determined to spend his day in the bath to stave off the worst of the fever and aches. If it became too painful, he could always request a dose of the laudanum. He remembered the feeling of it from his first ever heat, when little Sammy had feared so for his brother’s life that he had fetched the traveling man who was known for his potions. It was Bobby Singer who had explained omega biology to him, dosed him with opium, and instructed Sam to bathe Dean’s head in cool water through the night. That night had turned into four nights, and by the end of it both boys were achingly hungry and exhausted.

Dean’s memory conjured up those old days as he reclined in his copper tub in the great castle at Winchester. He had been in the water for an hour when Kevin, the omega second footman, brought up a tray of breakfast for him. A plank was placed across the rim of the tub to serve as a table, and Dean fed himself as well as he could with shaking hands.

The bathing closet was at the exterior wall of the room, far from the door and adjacent to the window that overlooked the back garden, so Dean could hear the soothing rain as it persisted. He let the sound and the faint wet scent of the weather carry him to a near-slumber as the tepid water cooled him. He was thus subdued and disoriented when a commotion from the corridor came to his attention. He had heard the door open and with unfocused eyes watched Kevin in the reflection of the window glass as he drew near with another kettle of hot water to keep Dean from getting too chilled. A scuffling then scratched against the chamber door—a knocking that sounded all too harsh and alarming in the sleepy mood of his bath, and Dean heard a most vicious growl. Gabriel’s voice cut in sharply, “Stop it, alpha!” and then Lady Charlie’s voice was distinct above the continued growl, “I don’t think being gentle is going to do the trick, here, Gabe.”

A brutal sounding commotion, like a bout of fisticuffs, followed and by then Dean was half standing in the water, on high alert and ready to jump into the fray when the snarling growls abruptly stopped with a clamor against the door that rattled the items on Dean’s dressing table. Dean froze, even holding his breath, for some moments, listening for more, but no further sounds came, save for footsteps retreating in the hallway.

“You should settle back in, sir,” Kevin said. “I have more hot water for you, and Ellen is making a nice potato and onion pie to settle the growl on your insides.”

“What was all that, Kevin?” Dean sat back in the water and drew his knees to the side so Kevin could add the hot water. For a few moments, Dean stirred the tub with his hands and enjoyed the steam that rose from the cloudy surface.

“That was Colonel Milton outside your door, sir. He has been there these three hours or more looking as miserable as a man can be, barely moving or even breathing, except to growl, until that door opens and then he’s huffing his fool head off so he can get your scent and drive himself mad with it.”

Dean twisted to look over his shoulder at the door being described. “Colonel Milton,” he murmured.

“Yes sir,” Kevin gathered his kettle and put the towel back within Dean’s reach. “Mind you stay in this room, sir. Don’t get any lunatic ideas about following your alpha.”

Dean shivered in spite of his warm bath at the very idea and assured Kevin with a nod.

True to his word, he dozed through the day until he was fatigued merely from sitting idle.

By the time night fell across the house, Dean had grown sore from sitting in the hard copper tub with his knees bent all day, and he determined that he must have the laudanum if he was to sleep.

It was Ellen who came to him when he rang the bell. Kevin must have told her to bring the drug because she was ready with it. Dean paced in his nightshirt on the soft rug beside his bed, unable to settle or stop the itch beneath his skin that wanted his alpha. In his mind he envisioned himself a mass of gears wound too tightly on their spring and stuck at full speed for too long, growing hotter by the moment as the metal pieces worked against each other in fantastic fury.

“Calm yourself, omega,” Ellen crooned in a motherly tone. She put a hand on Dean’s shoulder to stop his pacing and put her fingers to his brow to test his fever. “Well you’re burning up, but you seem well enough otherwise. Enjoy these mild heats while you have them, boy. Soon enough you’re going to open up a door that cannot be shut.”

With some strength he hadn’t imagined he possessed, Dean sat still on the edge of the chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. It did not feel mild to him. “What do you mean ‘mild’?”

“So long as you’re untouched, you’ll have the fever and the pains and the desires, alright, but you can survive it. Once your alpha has claimed you, you won’t be able to make it through a heat without having him.” Ellen decanted a short glass of water and prepared the dropper with the medicine. “Over and over again,” she added, rather unnecessarily, Dean thought.

He shivered and could not help blushing at the image that conjured, and his leg began to twitch.

“Here, now. Your alpha has had his dose already and is sleeping, finally. The pair of you are more excitement than this house has seen since the night Castiel was born.”

Dean looked up in interest at his alpha’s name and took the slender glass of water clouded with two drops of the laudanum.

“You drugged Castiel, too?” he asked, and then he swallowed the medicine down fast and coughed at the taste that lingered on his tongue.

“He decided to join you in your agony and have a rut,” Ellen explained mildly.

Dean felt the gears in his mind begin to slow almost instantly. With a deep breath, his leg stopped vibrating. He closed his eyes and felt his muscles relax in stages as Ellen stood beside his chair and ran her cool fingertips through his hair. Trying not to think about his alpha in a rut just down the corridor, Dean grasped at a different thread of what Ellen had said, trying to think of Castiel as a harmless baby.

“I cannot imagine the colonel an infant,” Dean murmured at some length.

“Oh he was a tiny one, all eyes and mouth. Those big blue eyes and a voice like you never heard. He sounded like a banshee. An angrier baby I’ve never met.”

“Why was he so angry, do you think?” Dean allowed Ellen to tug him to his feet and drag him to his bed by the arm. He settled under his bed sheet and closed his eyes, and she turned down all the lamps but one.

“Oh, I imagined it was because he missed his father. The duke was away exploring across the sea while his young wife was in confinement. The babe had no papa to fuss over him, no alpha scent to assure him that he was safe and protected.”

“I s’pose I’ve heard of babies needing both the alpha and omega scents to be healthy.”

“It is common knowledge,” she confirmed.

Dean said nothing for a long stretch while Ellen petted his hair, and she was about to stand and put out the last light when he sighed and looked up at her with his blown-out eyes. “What if I’m not enough for him?”

Ellen frowned. “Dean Winchester, that man is utterly devoted to you. Any fool can see it. Let yourself be a fool once in a while, so you can see it, too.”

Dean’s lips curved up at her mild teasing, and he kicked his sheet off his feet when he began to sweat again.

“See, you’re agitating yourself. Stop worrying so much, and let the drug take you to sleep,” she scolded.

Obediently, Dean closed his eyes and turned onto his side, burrowing into his pillow and allowing his senses to revel in the giddy effervescence swirling through his blood. Before Ellen had even shut the door behind herself, Dean was fast asleep.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is much ado about science

### 

By the third day, Dean was still feverish but too miserable to sit in a bath, so Ellen boiled some willow tea and sent it up, and Kevin was assigned to sit with him in case the fever became dangerous or he tried to leave his room. It was an uneventful day within those walls.

Without, however, Castiel paced beneath Dean’s window in the garden. Disheveled and as lucid as a lunatic, the alpha alternated staring up at Dean’s window and yelling invectives at everyone who took turns keeping an eye on him by innocently wandering by. A litter of spring puppies chose that day to escape from the barn, and they chased on the colonel’s heels, back and forth like little ducklings locked onto their mother’s footsteps. When he grew tired enough to notice them he rolled in the grass to wrestle with them until their mother came and growled him away. Finally, the alpha retreated inside and settled his back against Dean’s bedroom door to sit vigil in the hallway, growling at Claire as she fetched water and Kevin as he carried it into the room. Since they were omegas, but not the right omega, the colonel was very unlikely to bother them. No one else dared take the risk. That night, more clear-headed, finally, he took to his writing desk, penciling a letter to a fellow former soldier in the capital in order hopefully to ascertain whether the regent had yet considered his request for leave to propose to Dean Winchester.

The next morning, Lord Balthazar offered to ride to the capital with Castiel’s letters, which the colonel was unwilling to let wait for the post. Meanwhile Gabriel, Lord Milton, was determined to stay by his stepbrother's side, in case of an incident. His duty consisted mostly of drinking port and naming Castiel an idiot each time he sighed or paced.

On the evening of the fourth day, after a good scrub in his tub, Dean felt in control enough of his senses once more to allow himself out of his room, despite Kevin and Ellen urging him to wait for the next morning, at least. He set his jaw, squared his shoulders and did not walk straight to Castiel’s door. He knew that the alpha would still be able to scent the heat on him as if he had rolled in rose bushes, so he headed out of doors instead to stretch his legs and shake off some restless energy.

Lady Charlie had some success with her electric light machine that day, creating a bright glow that lasted nearly five minutes within a hurricane lantern down by the creek, and she was more determined than ever to figure out how to maintain it indefinitely.

And so it was that almost immediately, Dean encountered Lady Charlie down by the stream where she waded in rolled-up trousers with a miniature waterwheel.

“Well hello, Dean!” she called. “Good to see you back with the living.”

“Good evening, Lady Charlie. I wasn’t ill.”

“Oh, I know.” Her nose twitched, but like the polite lady she was, she didn’t comment on his still-ripe scent. “Everyone did miss having you around, though. Can you hold this for me?” She tossed a coil of wire to Dean as she stepped back from her little water wheel and watched it to make sure it wasn’t about to collapse. Then she waded back to dry ground to stand with Dean and relieve him of the wire. At that point, she fixed a bit of the copper wire to a hurricane lamp on a small trestle planted firmly on the grass. As soon as her hands let go of the lamp, it lit, as if by magic!

Dean stared in awe as the glass glowed with a supernatural white light. Charlie admired her handiwork and then Dean’s look of wonder. “Now I just have to get this to work inside the house,” she grumbled.

Dean studied the mechanism. “Does it have to turn a certain speed?”

“I haven’t got a precise calculation, if that’s what you’re asking, for one this small. For this small lamp, only a bit of electricity is necessary. There are two problems with it, though. This filament that creates the spark burns up quickly, in less than five minutes.” As she said it, the hurricane lamp, indeed, went dark. “And to power more lamps, I will need a mechanism that makes more electricity than my little water wheel.”

Dean reached out to the glass and noted it was hot to the touch. Charlie sighed and waded back in to retrieve her waterwheel and set it on the trestle table while she laced her boots back on. Dean bent to inspect it and noticed the core of the wheel was solid copper. He hefted it and was surprised at its weight. To make a bigger wheel that would support more lighting would potentially get very heavy and be impossible to mount or to turn without a raging river.

Once her shoes were in place, Charlie packed her things into a handy crate and headed back toward the house. “All the rain lately has made this work very slow, as well,” she complained as Dean took the crate to carry for her. “But at least I have learned that mud stops the flow of electricity in the wire.”

“It does?”

“Yes, I had hoped to dig a narrow trench and bury wire all the way to the house and construct a larger waterwheel, but the line was simply dead when I tested it on a small scale.”

“I see,” Dean murmured. “So what is your plan, now?”

“Well, I was thinking of suspending the wire, but when I tested that, a butterfly landed on the wire and instantly died. In case that was a fluke, I tried it twice more. Once I even touched the wire myself, and it stung like a wasp. The next time a little insect flew past the wire and died in a hiss of electric spark. I have been considering ceramic pipes to thread the wire through, but then we would have not only a very heavy construction above our heads, but an interrupted view of the sky. I perhaps could bury the ceramic pipes--” At that moment they heard the dinner bell ring inside the house and picked up their pace to the door.

Dean allowed Charlie to lead him into the kitchen, so he could carry the crate to a table. He picked up the water wheel once again and inspected it. He would have liked to spend more time discussing the potentialities with the scientist, but when Ellen saw them, she began to fuss that they would both be late for dinner and that they mustn’t leave their bits and pieces all over her kitchen. Thus scolded, they took the things upstairs and Charlie vanished to quickly replace her muddied trousers with “something proper enough for the dining room.”

Castiel and Gabriel were just outside of the dining room drinking whiskey and discussing the day’s post when Dean entered the room. Castiel’s voice cut off mid-word, and he was at Dean’s side in an instant. “Dean,” he said, and the omega held his breath, waiting for the rest of the sentence, but nothing else followed. Instead, they regarded each other closely for an unreasonable stretch of time. As Dean looked into the alpha’s striking blue eyes, he noticed that Castiel had dark circles beneath them, and if it were possible, his hair was more of a wreck than usual. Dean smiled a small, private smile to see how his heat had affected his mate. “Castiel,” he greeted.

The alpha, evidently entranced at hearing his given name on his lover’s lips, was focused so thoroughly on Dean that he did not notice when Gabriel drew close to them and held a glass of the whiskey out for Dean and slapped him on the shoulder. “Come, now, Mr. Winchester,” he said. “Let us catch you up on all the gossip you have missed.” Dean’s eyes stayed fixed on Castiel’s despite his body being guided in the other direction until he stumbled into an upholstered chair and noticed that Gabriel was inviting him to sit. He sat as bid and sipped at his whiskey while they waited for dinner, the true mates still locked in an unsubtle staring contest.

Having no other place to light, Castiel took a seat on the divan beside Gabriel, and together the men described Sir Rafael’s trip through the surrounding estates. As they (mostly Gabriel) talked, Dean learned that the assize judge had been sent to use Castiel’s system of accounting to estimate a value of each of the nearby estates without their masters or estate managers realizing it.

At this point in their discussion, Jess’ ladies, looking instantly annoyed with the men’s conversation, arrived. It was clear that the duchess and princess were growing bored in the house, waiting for Jess to return from her honeymoon and give them purpose. What was the point of dressing for dinner when none of the gentlemen in the house would compliment their prettiness? To make matters worse, they had no other girls for company, no one to rival or befriend them. Luckily the recent puppies had created a good distraction for them, offering ample opportunity to chase through the gardens on sunny afternoons. But with all the recent wet weather they were feeling very tedious indeed. They chose to sit at the piano and pluck out pieces of old tunes, half forgotten, while the men talked.

Gabriel continued telling Dean that Rafael had been able, in his capacity as an officer of the courts, to review the officially filed ledgers for the neighboring estates to see how much tax each of them had paid in the last few years and compare that to their real worth in order to estimate how much the tenants of Winchester, if they could ever scare up some tenants for Winchester, would be expected to pay.

Castiel explained that his plan was _not_ to use the information to get the estates in trouble with the crown (unless he finds something egregious) but rather to get an idea of what Winchester could reasonably be expected to earn once she was restored.

Before he could produce a figure for Dean, however, Lady Charlie and then Sir Rafael arrived for dinner. A moment later, Ketch opened the doors to the dining room so that everyone could sit and be served.

Gabriel offered an elbow to the Duchess Amelia, Sir Rafael to the Princess Daphne, and Castiel to Dean, leaving Lady Charlie to enter on her own, which suited her just fine.

Over dinner, talk continued in the vein of the financial stability of Winchester. Dean learned that when the 12th duke (whom Dean now understood to be Castiel’s father) died a few decades ago, his son (Castiel, though no one names him in this conversation) had been stripped of the lands and titles, and Winchester town and estate had been left alone to fall to seed. Most of the tenants departed if they could, but without a duke on hand to collect taxes from the tenants, the crumbling town became a haven for layabouts with no incomes to speak of.

Now, the crown had reinstated the dukedom and bestowed an income of ten thousand a year on the new duke, as a member of the royal family via Princess Jessica, outside of whatever he could get the estate to bring in, and allotted a tax deferment of five years to permit the old town to attract new tenants and the fallow estate to ramp up production.

Meanwhile they explained that Castiel had brought Lord Milton and Lord Balthazar along to invest in the town and establish independent businesses therein which might attract industrious tenants. Dean wondered why, with ten thousand pounds already, the estate even needed outside investors like Lord Milton and Lord Balthazar. The gentlemen laughed, but then Gabriel answered.

“Well, to be honest, we have to invest money somewhere, and many of us have taken our funds out of the international trade business for political reasons. An opportunity like this—to invest domestically with schemes that improve the livings of lords and tenants alike— is rare. We would be foolish not to invest in Winchester, if for no other reason than to have a proving ground for our architectural and technological pursuits. Cassie’s invitation to come here and invest was the best possible thing to happen to the Milton family and the Winchester estate in a century!” Then he toasted Castiel, and everyone drank to him, and the colonel blushed and held Dean’s hand beneath the table.

Dean sighed. Boredom threatened to creep in and spoil his contemplation of the cloudless sky as he lay in the thick grass behind the stables. Nearby, Baby munched noisily, and farther off Nova did the same, the soothing sounds of their rhythmic chomping further lulling Dean into a stupor. Daffodils waved gleefully from the banks of the creek, and butterflies and pollen-drunk bees flitted around Dean’s prone form to investigate his brightly embroidered waistcoat for nectar; they quickly lost interest.

He sighed again and then mentally chastised himself for acting like an adolescent girl rather than a fully-grown man approaching his middle years. The trouble was that Lady Charlie was shut up in her workshop, Castiel and Gabriel were away paying a visit to Lord Crowley on business of some sort, and, worst of all, Dean missed Sam.

This honeymoon was the longest stretch of time that Dean had been parted from his brother in his life. He missed having someone to confide in; though he longed to confide in Castiel, he was hesitant to open himself up too fully in case the prince regent ultimately objected to their union. Keeping his true mate at arms length was his only means of survival if they were to be thwarted in their love. So Dean kept much to himself, despite the alpha’s attempts to spend every available moment with him.

Dean enjoyed his time with Lady Charlie, but she was often wont to spend days alone with her work. Sometimes he joined her in her workshop laboratory, but more often lately she was snappish. He recognized the signs of impending rut after spending a lifetime with Sam, so he was staying clear of Charlie for the time being.

He loved his hours in the kitchens with Ellen and the kitchen girls, but he had been shooed away as preparations commenced for the master and mistress’ return and a grand feast.

The month of honeymoon had passed, and finally, Sam and Jess were expected in four days' time. The entire castle was bustling with activity. Millers and brewers arrived daily with sacks of flour for the baking and casks of ale for the toasting. The maids worked long hours scrubbing floors and washing linens and dusting rooms and making beds. Lambs and piglets were slaughtered for the roasts and pies and delicacies for the days of feasting to come. The chimneys from the kitchens billowed continuously.

Dean identified the shape of a playful puppy in an errant cloud that appeared as from nowhere and watched as it morphed into an upturned cart and then some wisps of breath on a cold morning. He was roused from his reverie when Baby’s soft nose brushed against his hand. He lifted it to scratch her jaw and looked to see his face reflected in the large, dark eye that regarded him.

“I know, Baby. I’m pathetic.” Normally, Dean would be working to earn his keep or tinkering with his contraptions just to occupy himself, but he had run short of bits and pieces to work with. Furthermore, he lacked a necessary tool that had gone missing from his workshop. He suspected he had mislaid it, or loaned it to Charlie, but without it he was stalled for now.

He missed Bobby and Benny and the easy access he once had to small scraps of metal and the means to melt them. The number of times either of them had forged a new tool for him was uncountable. Luckily, he had his own little crucible in which he could melt something soft like gold or copper, but of course gold was hard to come by. He had his bits of copper from Lady Charlie, but without his missing tool, they were useless to him now. His fingers ached to work, but there was nowhere local to get what he needed, and he had long since run out of coin, anyway.

So Dean found himself relegated to lying in the spring grass and feeling sorry for himself. He had spent the morning with the ladies and the puppies in the garden, delighting them with teaching the rapidly growing little dogs simple tricks. They laughed and marveled at his ability to charm the pups, but he knew they truly preferred their own company to his, so after lunch he had gone off alone to stay out of everyone’s way.

Baby blew on his face, and Dean sat up abruptly to avoid a sloppy kiss. “Alright,” he chuckled. “I’ll see if I can find something nice for you in the kitchen. Wait here.” She watched with attention as Dean scurried up the hill to the castle’s back door.

“There you are, sir,” Kevin called as soon as Dean came into view.

“Here I am,” Dean responded. “Were you looking for me?” Normally everyone was trying to get rid of him rather than trying to find him.

“I just thought you’d want to know, since Colonel Milton is not returned yet, that a dispatch arrived an hour ago with the royal seal.”

Dean was all attention. “Where? Where is it?”

“It’s expressly addressed to the colonel. You mayn’t read it.”

Dean squared his shoulders. “I wouldn’t, Kevin. You know me better than that.” As he spoke, he followed Kevin into the house and through to Castiel’s study where a silver salver sat on the desk, upon which lay a white square of paper topped with a royal blue seal.

Dean stood in the doorway and breathed.

He looked to Kevin.

He looked back to the letter on the desk.

“When is the colonel expected home, Kevin?”

“He is to dine at Lord Crowley’s.”

“Damn,” huffed Dean. His mouth twitched in thought as he determined what to do. “He will want it immediately,” he determined. “I shall take it to him.”

“The walk takes hours, sir.”

Dean scoffed. “I shall ride.” Dean turned on his heel to fetch his boots from his room (Walking barefoot in the grass was a small pleasure Dean indulged in his solitude.), and cast instructions over his shoulder to the footman. “Have Ketch bring the dispatch to me as I saddle Baby.” He knew it would be unthinkable to go into Castiel’s private office and take the dispatch from his desk, so, since Ketch liked excuses to visit his husband in the stables, Dean betted on Ketch’s compliance and thus tacit approval of his plan.

Dean was booted and brushing Baby in no time, having paused ever so briefly in the kitchen to grab two leftover sticky raspberry and oat muffins from the basket by the door. Baby ate hers in short order and nosed at Dean’s pocket for the other one, but he was unwilling to give up his own food, considering this scheme would likely mean he would miss dinner.

Once she was blanketed and saddled, Dean began to worry that Ketch wouldn’t appear after all, but as he led the horse to the doorway, he saw Ketch sitting with Mick as they enjoyed a smoke together. The dispatch was resting on his knee. Ketch took it up and stood when he saw that Dean was ready to depart.

He held the letter up but snatched it away from Dean’s hand before he could take it. “I trust you to place this into Colonel Milton’s hand intact.”

Dean nodded solemnly. “I swear it.”

Thus in possession of the letter, Dean mounted. He had never been to Lord Crowley’s estate but he knew it lay along the creek to the south of Winchester, so he turned Baby’s nose and set out at a walk until the creek joined up with her sister tributary and widened enough that a worn towpath made for easy cantering. With the early afternoon sun on his right shoulder, Dean raced a piece of flotsam borne along the water’s top and enjoyed the yellow streak of daffodils in his periphery. In less than an hour’s time the great house came into view, and Baby slowed to breathe heavily and jostle her head. With a short trot ahead of them, Dean felt the letter in his pocket, making certain it was still safe, and he let his ankles rest, dangling his feet out of the irons as he took the crushed muffin from his pocket and ate it hastily.

He must have been spotted from the house because a footman waited to take his reins as Dean dismounted. He was saved from pulling the bell cord at the entryway by a cadaverous butler in somber blacks that made Ketch’s charcoal gray livery seem utterly festive. Dean, sweaty and still slightly out of breath, was shown to a parlor where Castiel was engaged in playing a piano while Gabriel and a stocky, soberly dressed man listened. When Castiel looked up and saw Dean, the notes he played staggered and rang false before stopping altogether. In an instant Castiel was on his feet and in Dean’s space.

“What is it, Dean? Are you well? Is there trouble?”

Dean, arrested as ever by the intense scrutiny of those earnest blue eyes, stood transfixed a moment before reaching into his pocket and wordlessly producing the letter. He watched as Castiel took in the seal and realization dawned. This was the letter they had been waiting for, the letter upon which every happiness hinged.

A moment of eagerness was surmounted by doubt and then anxiety as Castiel reached for the paper.

“What drama is this?” Lord Crowley asked in an archly interested intonation.  
“Must be the prince regent’s answer, finally, to Cassie’s suit,” Gabriel replied.

“Oooh.”

All of this chatter was peripheral to Dean watching as Castiel broke the seal and unfolded the paper.

Dean read Castiel’s countenance as Castiel read the words on the page.

The colonel’s brow furrowed in consternation, and then knotted… in anger?

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense, Cassie,” Gabriel called, but the colonel ignored his brother.

It must have been some lengthy mumbo-jumbo, and Dean’s heart was about to flutter away in impatience until Castiel looked up. As the pair of them gazed into each other’s eyes, Castiel came to some internal decision and the crease of anger and the furrow of worry erased themselves from his brow. Slowly and sweetly a smile bloomed across his face.

Dean needed no more prompting than that to throw his arms around Castiel’s neck and smile his own bright smile. Castiel crushed Dean in his arms and touched his cheek and then, before Dean could have a hope of backing away to save himself from the onslaught, Castiel crashed his mouth onto Dean’s smiling lips. The kiss was like a wayward boat buffeted against a jagged shore: at first all teeth and surprise. But soon Castiel’s tongue plunged into Dean’s open mouth, and the omega’s knees went weak. Castiel chased the kiss and moved his embrace to support Dean flush against his body. He kissed as a starved man who had finally got a taste of the world’s sweetest fruit. He couldn’t get enough and wouldn’t stop for the world.

Dean moaned: a wanton, helpless sound, and clung to his alpha as for his life while Castiel angled their heads and lost himself in the taste he had longed to learn these past many weeks. Neither of them was at all sensible to the pair of men sipping cordials in the far corner of the room. Even when a faint bell rang, Castiel was like a wolf with his prey, alternately snuffling at Dean’s throat and licking into his mouth.

“Ah, Garth, do go directly to the kitchen to inform the cook that we will be four at dinner.”

“Very good, milord.”

The two gentlemen sipped their liqueur, and ignored the true mates devouring each other in the corner until Castiel began to emit a low but persistent growl when he got Dean backed against the wallpaper.

Lord Crowley’s brows shot up and he wondered, “Shall we fetch a bucket of cold well water to drench them in, do you think, Gabriel?”

“It might be for the best, Crowley. It might be for the best.”


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which architecture and science come together

### 

Castiel was shut up in his office for hours the following morning, meeting with Rafael, writing letters and making plans, Dean assumed, for their marriage. Since this wedding could not come soon enough for either of them, Dean was willing to give Castiel his space. To pass the time, he spent the morning with Baby and Nova, who had been discovered by the puppies and were feeling a little nervous about all the activity, yapping, and frolicking underfoot.

Additionally, construction had finally begun on the stables; roof shingles were being cut, and stall doors were being crafted. Dean reckoned the hammering and banging weren’t doing the draught horses any favors, either. So he got halters onto the ladies and led them up the creek to where it merged into the river, where the hammering was naught but a faint ticking in the distance, and Dean lay in the grass as they grazed on either side of him.

If he spent his dozy hours in the morning sun daydreaming of Castiel’s kisses, well that was no one’s business.

His entire body shivered as he thought of the feel of Castiel’s muscled body against his own, of the taste of his mate’s sweet mouth, of the hot, wet, all-consuming kisses they had shared.

Dean felt the slick begin to dampen between his legs and ran a frustrated hand down his face. He had to keep himself together.

He had been entirely correct in his early assertion that they must not kiss until they received a blessing on their union. Now that Dean had experienced Castiel’s mouth, his passion, he longed for it every moment. He needed it like air.

Damn! The way it had felt to be in his alpha’s arms! To feel his very being possessed by desire and the instinct to mate!

Realizing his breathing was heavy and labored, Dean pushed himself up from the ground and stomped to the water’s edge. He managed to cup a handful of cold water onto his face and cool his fervor. Annoyed with both his biology and his vivid imagination, he decided it was time to head back to the house and try to distract himself elsewhere. Or to see if Castiel was finished with his letters and willing to spend the afternoon kissing. That would be fine with Dean.

Having deposited the horses with Mick and then finding Castiel still shut away, Dean wandered into the blue parlor to make use of its wide windows and superior light for drawing. He wanted to create a plan for the gift he wished to make for Castiel from the broken silver spoon that had come into his possession. Gabriel was there, writing in his little book with additional sheaves of paper spread out before him.

Dean stood at the hearth to sharpen his pencil with his penknife, making careful, deliberate shavings in order to conserve as much of his small pencil as possible. He was able to direct the shavings into the fire and come out of the exercise with a fine point, though the utensil was yet barely big enough to hold.

He was out of pennies, and anyway, there was no place nearby to purchase a new pencil; so he would make do with what he had for as long as possible.

He took a seat at the tea table, since Gabriel was at the writing desk, and set to work. Dean may not have known much of Castiel’s background, but the alpha had revealed to him that he was wildly fond of the summer wildflowers that bloomed in the churchyard at the Milton estate. Castiel had described poppies and pimpernel, cornflower and dog rose. Dean had envisioned the enchanting blue of the forget-me-not in Castiel’s eyes.

Shaking his head to clear away the reverie, Dean drew. He envisioned a poppy that opened its petals to reveal two men in an embrace. He scratched that idea out and tried to think of something simpler. Sketching idly, he discovered that the letters C and D blossomed from the delicate petals he drew. With strong stalks to make an M and a W, enclosing the delicately curved initials, a pin or buckle would be a challenge in silver. Dean liked the idea of a sturdy buckle or even a brooch with their letters entwined. That would do it. After all, his husband must have a wedding gift.

He lost himself for immeasurable long moments in his drawing until his page was suddenly doused in shadow, and he looked up to see Gabriel standing before him.

“You’ve a very good hand, Mr. Winchester,” he complimented.

“Oh. Lord Milton, thank you.”

“I thought you might like a new pencil,” Gabriel held out an unsharpened pencil longer than any Dean had ever owned before.

Dean reached toward it but stopped himself. “I couldn’t. It must have cost sixpence, at least.”

Gabriel laughed. “Only five, but please, take it with my regards.”

“I haven’t a ha’penny left in my pockets, my lord.”

“Man, I am not selling it to you. It’s a gift. It hurts my hand to see you drawing with that little stub.”

Dean looked up but could see only earnestness in Gabriel’s eyes.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, what is this you’re creating?” He pointed to Dean’s drawing.

“Please don’t tell the colonel,” Dean prefaced.

“There is nothing I like better than keeping secrets from my brothers.”

“I wish to make him a wedding gift.”

Gabriel hummed his approval and traced Dean’s drawing with his eyes. “This is very intricate. Are you really so talented with metal?”

“When I can put my hands on a forge for an hour or two, I can make many things.” Dean blushed. “I suppose it is rather ambitious, but I believe I can do it reasonably.”

“Hmm. You may be able to help me with something.” Gabriel walked back over to the writing desk, and when he sat down Dean realized he was meant to follow. He stood and walked to see what Gabriel had been working on.

“Are these houses?”

“Of course they are,” Gabriel replied.

“They’re wonderful. Have you been commissioned to an estate, Lord Milton?”

“Castiel said you were intelligent. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s thinking with the right head.”

Dean opened his mouth to object but Gabriel pressed on before he had a chance to speak. “Dean, this is Winchester!” he exclaimed.

Dean’s mouth dropped open.

“Cassie told me the two of you are working on a plan to revitalize the town, but before he could bring new people here in good faith, he insisted they have places to live where the roofs don’t leak and the fireplaces are wide enough for cooking and families have rooms to put the children in for sleeping. Plus, look, there are courtyards for laundry and bathing, and outhouses that are easy for pregnant omegas to get to.”

Dean picked up page after page, his mind reeling and his eyes delighting at the cottages, houses, apartments, and communities portrayed there.

“And gardens,” Dean whispered. He thought of his life in Glassblowers Street where there was no patch of grass to be found. No trees or flowers, no pond or creek. On a fine Sunday when Dean had no pressing work, the boys would occasionally trek down to the river that passed through the capital city and talk their way onto a boat heading west so they could hop off at the large grassy park in a fine neighborhood. They would marvel at the feel of soft grass under their feet and sometimes play ball with other boys. More often than not, though, they were excluded from games on account of their ragged clothes. Left to their own devices, they would play at wars, one of them wielding a long stick and the other a short one, representing a musket and a pistol. The musket of course had the advantage of turning into a bayonet so the English almost always defeated the French. Those were fine days.

“This is wonderful, Lord Milton.”

“Thank you.”

“You said you had some question for me?”

“Yes.” He gestured to Dean to sit across from him. “Cassie wants these drawings prepared for Sam’s return from his honeymoon, which means I’m running out of time to solve a little problem.”

“What problem?”

“There is only one well in the town.”

Dean leaned in toward the map of Winchester-to-be that Gabriel had drawn. He scratched at his chin and traced the streets and lanes with his eyes. He thought of Lady Charlie’s ceramic pipes.

“A conduit,” he concluded.

“Going where?” Gabriel asked.

“It wouldn’t make sense to divert the well water to a churchyard font as you’ve got it here,” Dean pointed out, “because that’s just asking for the well to be contaminated as all of these houses dump their pots and food scraps along here.”

“My worry exactly,” Gabriel agreed, “which is why I am searching for another solution.”

“Right, so if we could get our hands on a pump of some sort, perhaps a windmill or a waterwheel, to bring the water _up_ the street in closed pipes instead of a gutter, then you could build a font at the head of each street for the residents to use for clean water and put a gutter at the end of each street to carry soiled water away and _down_ to the creek,” Dean suggested, his finger dragging first up and then down the page.

Gabriel’s eyes lit up. “I’ll bet you five pounds that Balthazar will purchase a steam pump for the town! We can have the townsfolk pay a subscription for their fresh water to come in and the foul water to go out.”

Dean laughed. “I haven’t got five pounds to bet you, sir, but I don’t know about charging the tenant for water when they can get it from the creek for free.”

“Convenience, Mr. Winchester!” Gabriel crowed with a wink as he pulled his chair around so he could write notes in the moving patch of sunlight. “I have heard of using lead for such pipes, but I wonder if it is too soft a metal to last for the lifetime of a town in so wet a region as this,” he muttered as he scribbled.

“It is brittle, yes. Perhaps clay pipes instead? Lady Charlie got her hands on some ceramic pipe near here, but I daresay I don’t know how Winchester would pay for fired ceramics.”

“Hmm. Clay would surely break down or crack as soon as lead, wouldn’t it?”

Dean ran a hand through his hair. “As long as the water stays in the pipes, the clay will expand and contract depending on the weather rather than simply break apart. Eventually it will break down, but even so, I assure you that clay would be much less costly to repair than lead.”

Gabriel mused. “Are there any clay deposits nearby, I wonder?”

“Well,” Dean thought aloud, “Like I said, I know that Lady Charlie bought some very fine and thin ceramic pipes somewhere nearby. She might have some familiarity with local factories as a result of doing her electrical work.”

“Oh! I shall seek her out then.” He stood and then paused and turned to face Dean with wild excitement in his eyes. “But that gives me another idea.” Gabriel looked to Dean with eyebrows raised.

Dean caught the idea quickly and articulated, “Electric lights in the town!”

Gabriel smiled, “It would be a wonder, wouldn’t it?”

“Lord Milton,” Dean said sagely, “We have work to do!”

While Dean cleared away his drawings to make sure they were put out of the way of Castiel’s eyes, should the alpha ever emerge from writing his interminable letters, Gabriel ran up to Charlie’s workshop. By the time Dean tapped at her door, Gabriel was just leaving with his information.

“Two hours’ ride, Mr. Winchester! I shall be back for dinner.” He slapped Dean’s shoulder on his way out into the corridor. Charlie looked bemused at Gabriel’s enthusiasm and the pair of them listened as Gabriel clattered down the steps and slammed the door on his way to the stables to embark upon his mission.

“Well, he seems pleased,” Dean commented.

“He does, doesn’t he?” Charlie agreed, heaving a sigh and letting her tool clatter onto her tabletop.

“You, on the other hand, do not,” he observed.

“Electricity is no easy thing to harness. It comes naturally through lightning, and I have seen miraculous machines to harness it, but creating it from nothing is not so easy.”

Dean picked up one of the parts she was working with. “This is quite heavy,” he commented.

Charlie sighed, “I supposed I was overestimating my ability to create light for an entire great house like this.” Dean read upon her face that she was on the verge of utter discouragement. This would not do.

He looked around the room filled with assembled pieces of wood and metal and tools and wire. A random assortment of large light globes littered a table by the window, looking ethereal and arcane. Another set of much smaller globes sat upon the mantle.

“What if,” he mused, talking more to himself than to Charlie, “What if instead of a large generator for the entire house…” He trailed off into a thoughtful hum.

“Yes? Spit it out, Mr. Winchester.”

“No, it’s nothing. I don’t even understand how all these parts work,” he demurred. “Will you show me?”

Charlie huffed, obviously disappointed that Dean didn’t have an idea after sounding like he had one. Instead she picked up a nearby rod wrapped in copper wire and began to add to the things she had already taught Dean about electricity over their course of working together thus far.

Dean learned fast and understood mechanical workings on a level that at times astonished Lady Charlie. When the tea things arrived, Charlie put her work aside, and set to the food with ravenous hunger. Dean, on the other hand, forwent the food and instead whittled his new pencil to a fine point and began to draw.

When Charlie looked up from her empty teacup to see what Dean had put to paper, she was amazed.

“A spring coil!” she exclaimed. “I never would have thought of a spring coil! It won’t need a waterwheel or wind or anything!”

Dean grinned at her and added some numbers beside his drawing of a toothy gear and the jointed cog that would fit into it.

“But wait,” she said as her eyes made sense of the way the several small drawings Dean had created would fit together into a working mechanizm. “How large is this? To fit those globes I already have, they would have to be the size of a standing clock.”

Dean looked to the grandfather clock at the side of the room and nodded. “Yes, that is likely for those globes,” he agreed. “But I was thinking of building this on a smaller scale. I will use the small globes on the mantel. I can rescue some scraps of wood from the stables to encase the mechanism.”

“But these little globes,” she whined, picking one up, “do not stay lit more than five minutes.”

“I thought the problem was the electricity,” Dean pressed, confused.

“Mr. Winchester, do you know what the light globe is made from?”

“Glass,” he replied as though speaking to someone very dull.

Charlie waved him off, “Yes, yes, obviously, but do you know what makes the light?”

Dean looked at one of the great globes and recalled what Charlie had taught him about the function. “A strip of metal is heated until it glows.”

“Yes. In the small globes, it is a strip of tin, but in the large globes, it’s a strip of platinum, actually,” she explained. “Platinum can get very hot without melting, which, in theory, makes it ideal.”  
“But it’s expensive,” Dean finished for her.

“Yes. So, I want to test these platinum filaments, but since these globes are so large—so much larger than I had meant them to be, I haven’t had the chance yet.”

“I see,” Dean said. “You are hoping for Winchester money to make more globes and be able to perform more tests,” he surmised. “But, the light is made by heating the metal and it consumes the filament too fast, right?”

“Yes. That’s the trouble,” Charlie answered.

“Well,” Dean thought, scratching his chin. “Then you want to keep the filament from burning out.”

“Yes...” she trailed off thoughtfully. “So far, the filaments eventually catch fire and flame out,” Charlie explained.

“But a fire takes more than just fuel to burn.”

“You said that before, weeks ago. That’s why I had globes made to keep air out instead of using the hurricane lamps like I started with,” Charlie was frustrated.

“But there is still air trapped inside the globe,” Dean pressed.

“It is inevitable.”

“Hear me out, Charles,” Dean scolded her cheekily. “What if-- I have seen a man make a glass jug glow blue for a second or two with nothing in it but the fumes from a still.”

“Alright?”

“Suppose we could seal up the glass bulb with the filament in place and a drop of something highly volatile, like pure spirits. Something that will burn up quickly. Burn up before your platinum filament even grows hot, taking the air in the globe with it.”

“Creating a vacuum,” she mused. “Yes, but how?”

“The platinum burns very hot, you said? Hotter than tin? Hotter than spirits?” Dean asked.

“Well, yes. Much hotter, probably.” Lady Charlie coaxed him on with his idea.

“We should be able to prevent the platinum from burning. It will keep just at a glow, as you said, but not flame up and be consumed in fire if something that burns at a lower temperature burns up the air first. It should give your platinum strip a prolonged life, too. If it can’t catch fire, it can glow for hours!”

Charlie’s eyes lit up brighter than the filaments they discussed. “Dean!” she exclaimed, “I could kiss you!!”

Dean hastily backed a step toward the door. “I’m going to, ah, go down to the stables and see about scrap metal to craft this spring from. The forge must be near repaired by now,” he explained before turning tail and disappearing out the door.

Charlie laughed and got to work reading her chemistry books to figure out what she would need.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which several horses, a foreigner, and a new duke appear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (recreational drug use)

### 

A clattering din, a great deal of yelling, and the vocalizations of horses awakened Dean before the sun. Throwing his dressing gown over his shoulders, he parted the bedroom curtains and peered into the grayish light of early morning to see almost the entire household in the back garden attempting to contain a herd of fine black horses.

Mick was there in the midst of the melee with a crop in his hand and a length of rope. Lord Milton and Lord Balthazar, in an odd Turkish banyan and a pair of breeches with a nightdress, respectively, wielded rope halters and fists full of carrots in an effort to lure the bests toward the paddock. Castiel was there, in his pristine white waistcoat, and only half his beard shaved, having obviously been interrupted in his morning ablutions. He sat astride one of the stallions without any tack while he held a length of rope wound round another’s neck. Even Ketch was involved, doling out lengths of rope to everyone present.

Dean tripped over the trailing sash of his dressing gown as he rushed to the wardrobe to select his plainest tan trousers and his old brown jacket. Dressing quickly, with only one boot on, he threw himself down the stairs to join the fray. He stopped at the kitchen doorway only long enough to pull on his second boot and watch one of the impolite horses pull turnips from the kitchen garden. Mick tapped the rude horse with his crap and drew him out of the vegetables.

As soon as he was fully dressed, Dean took a portion of rope and tied it into a harness, as Mick had shown him to do earlier in the month. Harness in hand, Dean paced to the back of the garden where a particularly tall horse was munching at the herbs. He spoke low to the stallion and approached on alert to the horse’s movements, but the beast was not skittish. Dean was able to slip the harness over his nose without any fuss and then lead the horse back to the herd. He repeated the process with two others, a mare and another stallion, and eventually took the rope that dangled from Castiel’s hand and tied it into a harness as well. The chaos quickly transformed to order once the horses had been shown that they were not invited to help themselves to the greenery.

Lady Charlie handled a length of rope on either side of her and was the first to follow Mick and the lead horse down to the stables. The horses, accustomed to traveling as a herd, followed fairly easily, and soon the paddock adjacent to the stables was full.

Finally Dean could ask his question.

“Where did they come from?”

Mick was harried and grumpy. He didn’t have stalls for so many horses while the stables were still being repaired. Ketch was completely focused on his husband’s concerns. Charlie had no idea of the answer to the question, and Gabriel was busy fending off new equine friends who were attracted to the carrot still dangling from his pocket. Balthazar looked to Castiel, who finally focused on Dean.

Castiel smiled, “Hello, Dean.”

“Good morning, Castiel.” Dean took his time gazing in amusement at the man’s half shaved face. His collar was open without a cravat, and his throat glistened slightly from the work of wrangling horses for the past half hour or so. “Where did they all come from?”

Castiel looked around, as though he had forgotten the horses, and he noticed a man in a wide hat standing by the back door of the house gesturing wildly at Ellen.

“Let’s find out,” the colonel murmured as he stalked back to the house.

Dean followed.

“Oh Colonel, thank goodness you’re here,” Ellen began. “This foreign gentleman, I think, wants paying for the horses.”

“Paying?” Castiel was alarmed. “Sam’s letter said to expect them but not to have ready money for them.”

The foreign gentleman had turned by this time to Castiel, and Dean could see he held a paper in his hand, which he was still waving wildly as he spoke.

Dean froze in astonishment when Castiel began to speak in the foreign tongue himself!

The foreign gentleman was instantly transformed at hearing his own language at last, and he began to speak more quickly, at which point Castiel plucked the paper from the stranger’s hand and began to read.

“Oh, I see,” Castiel said before switching back to speaking foreign and exchanging information with the man. After some moments, the man seemed mollified, and he and the colonel shook hands. Dean had never seen Castiel behave in such a familiar manner before, and he could not stop staring as his alpha grinned widely and slapped the stranger’s shoulder before ushering him through the back door and into the kitchen.

Ellen and Dean exchanged a look before both stepping forward to follow.

Claire and Kevin stood back from the great table in the kitchen where some breads were in preparation. Castiel himself went to the hot stove and prepared a coffee for the man in the tiny coffee pot that Gabriel used every morning. Once the coffee was decanted into a small bowl, Castiel added hot milk to it. Throughout this process, Ellen stood back with her arms crossed over her middle as though restraining herself bodily from pummeling the colonel for using her stove.

As soon as the milk and coffee concoction was prepared, Castiel rummaged on the shelf for a sugar bowl and then placed the bowl of coffee, the sugar, and a spoon before the older gentleman. He, in turn, added sugar to his coffee, stirred it noisily, and drank it down. The ceremony thus performed, he shook Castiel’s hand again, jabbering effusively as he did so. At that point, Castiel led the stranger up the back stairs, barely remembering before he disappeared to say over his shoulder, “We’ll be in my office. Please set another place for breakfast.”

And then he was gone.

It was Clare who spoke first. “Have you ever heard of an army colonel using a stove like that?!”

That was all the invitation Ellen needed to vent her spleen. “I have not! Not in all my born days have I had a man, an alpha, of all—Who does he think he is coming into _my_ kitchen and making himself at home on my stove? I’m tempted to take that young man over my knee and teach him—”

“Ellen!” Dean scolded mildly. “There’s no need for all that. I’m sure he’ll explain once that foreigner is sent upon his way.”

She did have the good decency to look abashed at her outburst. “You’re right, Mr. Winchester. Quite right,” she patted down her hair. “You run along now and tell those men to wash themselves. If the breakfast is cold when they drag themselves away from the horses, they’ll blame me instead of their own fool heads.”

Dean turned to go, but heard her still nattering on behind him: “I suppose I’ll have to boil Lord Milton’s coffee all over again, as well.”

Dean marched back down to the stables where Gabriel and Balthazar were catching the stallions out of the herd so they could be stabled in the stalls that were already appropriately outfitted because Mick was keen on keeping the gentleman horses apart from the ladies. Meanwhile, Mick was hauling down bundles of grass from the garret to feed them, and Charlie and Ketch were filling buckets at the creek. Dean deduced that those last two would be more likely to need his help carrying the buckets, so he set to fetching the pails up to the stables. He even got a look of thanks from Charlie for it.

By the time the horses were settled, more or less, and Dean had passed on Ellen’s admonishment to wash, every trace of gray had left the sky and been replaced with a bright, clear blue. It would be a fine day.

The stranger was at the breakfast table, helping himself to the toast and hard-boiled eggs but making faces at the kippers. It turned out that Lord Balthazar also spoke the foreign tongue, and he and Castiel kept the man chatting throughout the meal. Everyone else seemed too awestruck to say much of anything, except Gabriel who might have understood a few scant words of the language and so occasionally laughed or interjected a small phrase or two.

Eventually, Castiel seemed to remember himself and he finally explained to Dean and the others that the man was Giuseppe Fierro from some northern region of Italy. Dean’s eyes goggled at the very idea of traveling so far. Then Castiel explained that the Duke of Winchester had met Giuseppe at his farm and fallen so enamored of his horses that he bought some on the spot.

“Sam has been in Italy?” Dean gaped.

Castiel assured him it was true.

To think! His little brother, little Sammy, so far from home, so confident in himself, able to buy the fine horses he had just seen. It made something snap inside of Dean. Sammy truly no longer belonged to Dean. He was absolutely his own man now. He no longer needed his big brother to look out for him.

Feeling a hot prickle under his eyelids, Dean looked toward the window and willed himself not to shed a tear. It was stupid, he thought to himself, to be upset about this now, in front of a stranger, no less, when it was a truth that had been in place for more than a month already, a probably much longer.

“Wait,” Dean interrupted. “Does Sammy speak this foreign tongue as well?”

Castiel thought about the question for a moment and then turned to the stranger. He spoke, and Dean watched Giuseppe’s head nod up and down as he smiled and spoke rapidly and waved his arms and hands.

Dean felt sad to think of all the secrets Sammy had from him.

But when he watched Castiel’s animated face as the colonel listened to the foreign man, Dean knew he wasn’t being entirely fair. He had something of his own that was, as yet, still a secret from Sam as well.

Giuseppe Fierro was given a bedroom and a bath. The footmen cleaned his shoes and Kaia washed his clothes while he slept the day away. The following morning, he caught one of the mares, the one, specifically, that he rode in on. It was the one, in fact, that Dean had been meaning to ask about because even in his limited knowledge of horses he could see that she was no spring chicken, as they say.

Giuseppe saddled her in a soft leather saddle and paused. Only Dean and Castiel had risen early to see him off.

The old Italian and Castiel exchanged a few words, and shook hands with wide smiles on their faces. And then Giuseppe reached out for Dean’s hand, too. “Happy marry, eh?” he said. As Dean was trying to decipher this inscrutable message, the older man slapped his shoulder and said, “Chin tanny,” before he hopped onto the old mare’s back and secured a pack of food to the saddle and disappeared up the lane toward the road.

“What was that he said? ‘Chin tanny?’” Dean inquired.

Castiel turned to face Dean and looked into his eyes. “ _Cent‘anni_ ,” Castiel corrected. It means one hundred years, but more precisely, it’s something you say to brides and grooms at weddings. To wish them a century of joy together.”

“Oh,” Dean looked into Castiel’s shining blue eyes and mused on this information until the closeness of his alpha distracted him.

Without needing to hear the words, Dean knew he was about to be kissed, and he welcomed Castiel’s lips with a wordless invitation.

Later that morning at breakfast, as Dean scooped a generous portion of eggs onto his plate at the sideboard, he heard Gabriel briefing Castiel on the state of the stables. He said the work could be completed in short order with a few more hands, thus freeing the builders to get started on the new houses in town that very week.

Dean sat himself at the table and reached for the teapot. “I can help,” he offered.

Both Gabriel and Castiel looked over to him. Dean became suddenly self-conscious about the way his cheeks bulged with the over-large bite of eggs and toast he had shoveled into his face. He chewed deliberately and swallowed, even taking care to sip at his tea to clear his mouth. “I’m available,” he clarified then. “I know how to use a hammer. I even have a little crucible, and I can fashion nails, if needs be. Or straighten old ones for reuse.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows flew up. “I say, Cassie. Your chap here has a grand idea.”

Castiel was too busy smiling at Dean to see Gabriel’s expression, though. His eyes were soft as he replied, “He often does.”

And that was how, by lunchtime, every able-bodied hand at the estate had some tool in the work, and the stables roof was well on its way to being completed. And this meant that in the high afternoon, everyone from the house was on hand when a great carriage rumbled into the yard, and Samuel, Thirteenth Duke of Winchester, finally disembarked upon his estate with his lady wife, Princess Jessica.

Hammers forgotten and shingles dropped, everyone crowded to greet the master and mistress of the house. Whereas Rowena and Ketch had the household servants lined up in an orderly fashion, and the builders hung back around their worksite, out of the way, everyone else jockeyed around the carriage doors, and the entire little herd of puppies barked at the imposing contraption.

It was Dean, of course, who got to Sam first and threw his arms around his brother. For his part, Sam squeezed Dean just as tightly and laughed as Dean teased him about the outrageous shrubberies growing along his jawline.

“It is all the rage on the continent, I assure you, Dean,” Sam pleaded his case as his brother pulled at his sideburns before moving his attentions to his new sister.

Dean stood back at first and ducked his head to her most formally before she laughed and opened her arms to receive him. Dean took her offered hug and even kissed her cheek as Sam exchanged pleasantries with the others behind him.

“Castiel,” Sam greeted clapping his massive hand onto the estate manager’s shoulder. “Tell me that this farm will support us.”  
“Straight to work, is it, Your Grace? Surely we can enjoy a glass of wine beforehand?” Castiel joked in good spirits.

“Did you hear him, my darling?” Sam asked, aside to Jessica. “It is ‘Your Grace’ already!” Sam’s eyes danced with excitement at hearing his new title.

She petted his arm affectionately and hummed good-naturedly as her sister took her hand and kissed her cheek.

The group was on the move, heading in a swirl toward the open doors of the castle. There was a pause in the commotion as the household staff presented themselves to their master and mistress, and then the trunks and packages were handed down to the footmen and dragged up the back stars. French wine was popped open and glasses were handed round while everyone talked loudly, each of the party barely hearing himself over the din of the others.

The stories were lively but shallow, Sam and Jess clearly too tired from the journey to go into great detail. But everyone had questions about their travels, the monuments they had seen, the foods they had tasted, and the presents they had brought back with them. More wine was passed around, and Dean felt the settee beside him move with the weight of another while he was listening to Jess tell her sister and the duchess stories about the types of slippers and the types of stays she had encountered on the continent. Dean blushed at the discussion of underthings, and he looked over to see Castiel leaning into his shoulder.

Immediately, Dean stood and put some space between himself and his wine-warmed alpha. He knew that Sam would have to be asked for his approval of their match soon enough, but he meant to discuss it with his brother soberly. To have his alpha paw at him in a moment of tipsy amorousness could color Sam’s opinion of the union in an unfavorable light. So for the time being Dean was determined to keep Castiel at arms-distance.

This endeavor proved challenging, especially once Jessica decided she must go upstairs for a bath, and her ladies disappeared with her, leaving only the gentlemen of the house together sipping wine and tasting the strange Moroccan tobacco that Sam had returned with. It had the effect of making each man lightheaded and carefree. Sam insisted on each of them sharing his pipe, and soon Balthazar was stretched out on the rug while Gabriel sprawled on the upholstered chair and Castiel slid along the settee until his head lay in Dean’s lap. Dean, utterly relaxed by that point, merely ran his fingers through his alpha’s thick hair, having entirely forgotten the secret he was keeping from Sam.

And Sam did notice. “You look well together, the pair of you,” Sam commented toward Dean and Castiel.

Castiel’s already radiant face lit impossibly brighter as a heartfelt smile broke across his visage, “I love him, Sam,” he said matter-of-factly. Dean’s heart soared, and he beamed beatifically into his true mate’s face while around them, the room froze, except for Sam who sat forward.

“Dean?” Sam asked.

Dean was enraptured watching Castiel fall asleep on his lap. A moment too late, his brother’s voice broke in on his thoughts, and he hummed to his brother, “Hmm, Sam?”

“Is there something between you?” Sam asked. His eyes were black from the smoke and his lax hand relinquished the pipe easily when Lord Balthazar took possession of it again.

“Between us?” Dean asked, unsure of the question. “Oh!” Dean realized. “Regent said it’s alright, if you say it’s alright.”

For some reason, both Gabriel and Balthazar could not hold in their laughter at this statement. At first confused and bemused, soon Dean was laughing with them, and then Sam took back his pipe and joined in.

“It’s alright,” he said.

The patterns on the damasked pillow that cushioned Castiel’s head in Dean’s lap were blurred, and when Dean blinked to try to clear his eyes, which were no longer green but a deep black, he found he could not focus on the upholstery. Instead Dean looked down at his alpha’s face and marked his gentle brow and his stubbled chin, and Dean allowed himself to think, for the first time, how lovely it will be to wake every morning to that face. God has truly smiled upon him to grant such a blessing to a poor orphan from Glassblowers Street.

When the bell rang for dinner, the gentlemen were startled awake by it, still sprawled around the sitting room and draped upon the furnishings. Upon pulling the bell rope, they learned from Ketch that dinner would be served in half an hour, so all of them mustered to wash and change themselves. Dean sniffed at his shirt on the way up the stairs, and found that he smelled exactly like a man who had begun his day hammering wood in the warm sunshine before drinking and smoking away the afternoon. He regretted not having time for a bath and only hoped the water in his ewer was somewhat warm. He was relaxed, and he feared that dousing himself in icy water might abolish the air of calm he carried and ruin the tranquil mood.

Before turning off to his own room, Castiel paused beside Dean’s door with him and buried his nose against Dean’s neck. “For what it’s worth, Dean?” he maneuvered himself to face his mate, “I think you smell delicious.” And with a saucy half smile that left Dean’s mouth agape, Castiel disappeared behind his own door. Dean grinned as he changed shirts and buttoned his cleanest waistcoat.

By the end of the evening meal, the princess was stifling yawns behind her napkin, and Sam excused her from the dessert course to find her bed early. The young ladies accompanied her out of the room, and Sam’s entire attention was on the way his wife walked away. Dean envied the way his brother was attuned to her every breath. It reminded him acutely again that Sammy was no longer his to care for. Rather, Sam now had an entire household in his charge.

For a moment, silence reined at the table as Sam eyed Lady Charlie, who had not risen to depart with the ladies, but who, instead, selected a cigar from the box Ketch offered around the table and stayed in her seat to smoke it.

Finally, Lord Balthazar, easily the better mannered brother of the two elder Miltons, took it upon himself to restart conversation. Having declined a smoke, he decanted more brandy into his snifter and swirled the glass. “Well, Your Grace, I look forward to sitting with you in Parliament. The good Lord knows we need more young blood there.”

“Ah, if we three shall be colleagues as well as friends, you both must call me by my given name. We are equals, after all.” Sam raised his glass in turn to Lord Balthazar and Lord Milton.

“Indeed, Sam, I thank you.” Balthazar nodded solemnly, in a kind of seated bow. Gabriel did the same move and sipped his wine, having foregone the brandy.

“Will you be going into the city right away, Sammy?”

“It’s Sam, Dean. I thought not to this season. Since Jessica is expecting a pup, the city would likely only exhaust her, so I will ride into town for any pressing votes.”

The table was silent a moment before spontaneously breaking out in shouts and choruses of joy at Sam’s most welcomed news.

“Sammy, why didn’t you say something?” Dean shouted above the din.

Sam merely grinned, clearly proud of himself, “I just did, didn’t I?” He winked, and everyone toasted him boisterously.

“Well, we must have a party!” Gabriel enthused. Sam and Balthazar agreed, so the three of them began to plan a party. Meanwhile, Castiel’s face was alight with the echo of the happiness blooming all around him, and Dean was more than pleased to watch Castiel and quietly contemplate becoming an uncle.

Dean already looked forward to bouncing his little niece or nephew on his knee. “I hope the baby is a girl,” he quipped, “so you can make use of the miles and miles of ribbon Lady Amelia and Princess Daphne were kind enough to pin to every surface of your rooms.”

At that, everyone burst out laughing, each of them having seen and been utterly disturbed by the sashes, bows, and notions adorning the wallpapers, drapes, and furnishings in the master suite.

Soon enough, in regards to a house party, a plan began to form, and Castiel agreed to play the first quadrille of the evening. Even Charlie confessed to being able to play some “old tunes” passably well for the second half of the night.

The entire house would be invited as well as Lord Crowley, since he was their closest neighbor, and any guests he chose to bring. Thus it was settled that there would be a dance at Winchester to welcome the master and mistress back from their honeymoon while at the same time, welcoming the news of a new heir, expected. Ellen and Rowena were suitably thrilled when informed of this party, and they were suitably annoyed as they stayed up late together planning it. The food, at least, would not be a trifle, considering they had been planning a welcome-home feast, anyway.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is a party, a presentation, and a perpetration of ill-deeds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (attempted non-con (not Cas!))

### 

Along with Sam’s return, a new houseguest arrived that night with more luggages from the capital in a wagon. The man, one Mister Brady, belonged to Prince William, the Duke of Gloucester, one of Princess Jessica’s older brothers. He had been sent along on the honeymoon to act as a guard to Sam and Jess as they explored exotic locales. In such capacity, he had become one of Sam’s new close friends, and after having taken a much-needed day alone to placidly drive the Princesses’ copious souvenirs down from the docks, he was ready to attend the festivities and meet his new company the next evening.

Dean did not like him.

The obsequious manner with which he handled Sam was distasteful to Dean, to say the least. The man hung on Sam’s every word and laughed a little too enthusiastically at all of his jokes. Mr. Brady went out of his way, or so it seemed to Dean, to invite anecdotes from Sam that excluded all the rest of the company but included Mr. Brady. “Oh tell them about the venomous snake you encountered at Barcelona, your grace!” It turned out that Mr. Brady had pulled out his pistol and shot the snake in only two attempts! Even Castiel raised an eyebrow at the alpha and politely refrained from comment.

Upon first meeting Mr. Brady, whose manner was formal, yet oily, Dean felt as though his hand that the man kissed in greeting needed to be scrubbed with lye. He resolutely shook the feeling off, determined to have a nice time, at least for his brother’s sake, and to enjoy the dancing. The gentlemen all looked very fine in their tailcoats and white cravats, while the ladies appeared like shimmering jewels in their silks and thin muslins. Castiel, of course, looked handsomest of all with a glittering sapphire cravat-pin shining at his throat like a third, mystical eye. Lady Charlie was exceptionally dashing in black striped trousers and a very fine whale-boned waistcoat with embroideries of a phoenix that matched her hair.

Dean saw that she looked forlorn by herself at the punch table, and so he approached her and bowed very low to invite her to dance. Charlie laughed at his antics and bowed very low in return, barely keeping herself from guffawing in a most unladylike manner, and happily took his arm. They danced a quadrille, excellently played by Castiel and the lone musician they were able to find in the town—an omega boy named Max who played a violin like an Irishman and looked very stiff in one of Lord Balthazar’s borrowed tailcoats. The boy could play a rousing jig and accompanied Castiel very well for the ten shillings he had been promised for the evening’s work. Soon enough the vigorous dancing left Dean and Charlie parched, so they stopped to take refreshment by the window. The punch had taken on a more potent element since his last cup, but it had grown very hot in the wide hall where the dancing was taking place, and Dean could not help but drink several cups of the cool refreshment.

When Charlie took her leave to dance with Max’s sister, a wide-eyed beauty named Alicia who looked terrified to be in the company of royalty and as stiff as her brother in her borrowed muslin gown, Dean carried his cup to the pianoforte so he could watch Castiel’s handsome hands dance across the keys in the waning evening sunlight. The alpha’s bold blue tailcoat appeared magical in the orange rays of the falling sun; the strands of golden thread along the lapel and cuff sparkled like wisps of the man’s own beautiful soul captured in stitching. Dean was so caught up in his fixation on Castiel that he missed Mr. Brady’s approach, and when the slimy near-stranger asked Dean to dance, the omega’s mind was so muddled with thoughts of Castiel that he could not readily create an excuse to save himself from the interloper’s arms.

Luckily, country propriety dictated that a waltz was entirely improper, no matter what took place at Almack’s in the city, so Dean did not actually find himself in the rude man’s embrace. Even so, Brady clearly delighted in every opportunity to touch Dean, to let his hand linger at Dean’s shoulder during a turn or even rest upon Dean’s waist at a toe step. Dean felt his temper rising at each stolen touch, and he was near to striking out at the man when the bell rang for the cake, and Castiel’s hands stilled on the keys.

“Dean,” Castiel breathed into his ear when there was finally a moment to speak. “Are you quite alright?”

Dean leaned in toward his alpha ever so slightly to try to catch his calming scent in the crowded room. “I am better now, alpha.”

The intimate endearment made Castiel pause to assess Dean more closely. “Are you drunk, omega?” he asked under his breath.

Dean stepped back from the question, eyes going wide in affront before he paused. “I am… giddy.”

Castiel frowned and placed a hand on the small of Dean’s back to guide him toward the table. In a less private tone of voice he claimed that, “Mister Winchester would like a large piece of cake, your ladyship.”

Dean’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t _that_ fond of cake. But he took the plate from Castiel once the duchess handed it over, nonetheless.

Castiel stayed close by Dean’s side for the next episode of the evening, making sure that the omega finished his piece of cake, continuously feeding the omega cups of tepid tea, much to Dean’s chagrin.

Once the sun had fully set while they were seated around the edges of the hall with their plates and cups, the room grew very dim, and Princess Jessica called for more candles to be brought in.

“Wait,” Lady Charlie interrupted. “Forgive me, your highness, but before the room is lit, I should like to make a demonstration.” She made her announcement in the voice of a market hawker, and the heightened dramatics got everyone’s attention.

“Oh this is quite thrilling,” one of the ladies murmured in anticipation as Charlie retrieved an item from the corner of the room that was twice the size of a breadbox.

Dean sat up straighter in excitement while watching closely. Unfortunately for the darkness of the room, he could see very little, but he heard the mechanism click and knew what to expect.

The brightness that exploded into the room was a sensation! Glowing blue for the first second or two before settling to a bright white light, Charlie’s device elicited shrieks and murmurs and even the toppling over of a chair; in short, chaos erupted while the congregation blinked at the electric bulb in fascination.

Lady Charlie was immediately bombarded with questions, of course, and when she announced that Dean had played a role in creating the mechanism for the electric lamp, Dean began to back away from the bright attention in the space crowded with bemused and bewildered partiers and their questions. The cake and tea had helped to clear his head a little, but the excitement of Charlie’s successful demonstration and the lingering effects of the rum punch still caused a buzzing unsteadiness in his head. When he felt a hand on his back, he appreciated Castiel’s encouragement, but he had begun to need the privy and tried to back away. When the hand on his back moved down to a less respectable position on his body, Dean’s heart jumped. Then, just as the lamp wound down to darkness, he thought he saw Castiel across the room speaking with Lord Crowley near the lamp, which could only mean—

Dean yelped, but so did several other people in the sudden dark. Dean’s only recourse was to slip out the French window into the courtyard in hopes of shielding himself in the deep shadows of the night. Within the room behind him, the servants brought at least a dozen candelabras into the wide hall, and the excited chatter rose again.

The insistent press of too much tea on his bladder prompted Dean to stroll deep into the garden to relieve himself, relying on his familiarity with the path to guide his step. The moon had not yet risen, and the dark of the night was absolute. The cool air was refreshing, and the flowers smelled lovely. The air held an undercurrent of scents wafting up from the stables, but Dean had grown to appreciate the aroma of horses. He stopped behind a gnarled old oak stump that stood at waist height from a lighting strike many years back and unlaced his flies.

Feeling better, he turned to stroll back along the garden path toward the house, its bright window a tiny beacon shining up the hill, when a hand closed around his. The new scent that overwhelmed his senses was all bitter alpha musk and offensive perfume. His nose twitched in disgust.

“Pardon me,” he murmured, retracting his hand. His inclination was to give the interloper the benefit of the doubt and continue to the house. Perhaps the alpha had the same idea as him and simply wandered outside in search of the privy. But when he heard Mr. Brady’s oily voice, Dean froze in alarm.

“There is no need to beg my pardon, sweet omega. You led me out here, after all.”

Dean’s ire was piqued. “I came out here for my own purposes. If you followed me, then I must ask you to go back where you came from.”

“Now, now. No need to get skittish Mister Winchester. Or shall I call you Dean, like your brother does? Pretty Dean. I feel I know you so well from his grace’s stories of you.”

“You may _not_ call me by my given name, sir,” Dean tried to pass the alpha on the path, but they were at a narrow spot confined on either side by thorny roses, and Dean was loath to tear his expensive clothes. “You may not call me anything at all.” He pushed the alpha, trying to make way on the path. “Do not address me,” he grumbled in his frustration.

“Oh but you do want me to address you, don’t you, pretty omega? Or undress you? The way you pouted at me so flirtatiously during our dance… I know a good use for that pretty mouth of yours, Dean.” All the while he spoke, Brady touched Dean’s face, and Dean swatted at him like a cow with horseflies. The more Dean pushed and slapped, the more Mr. Brady crowded him and stole touches.

“And what about that pretty _arse_ on you, little omega? It feels ripe and ready to me.”

As the villain reached around to grab at Dean’s backside once again, Dean took a swing at him. Unfortunately, fettered by his tight layers of superfine wool, his fist only grazed the man’s chin, and Dean was disappointed he could not leave a bruise. By the subsequent moment, the smarmy alpha had his arms wrapped around Dean’s squirming torso and both hands kneading at Dean’s buttocks while his wet mouth left disgusting trails along Dean’s sideburns, since his high collar prevented the beast access to his neck.

The idea of leaving a mark on Brady caught in Dean’s mind as just the sort of damning evidence needed to get his brother to dispatch his new friend back whence he came, so feeling very unmanly, but also still too damned close to the alpha to get enough room to punch him solidly, Dean’s only recourse was to reach back and dig his stubby fingernails into the alpha’s hands.

Brady hollered and spat curses, but more importantly, he retracted his hands just long enough for Dean to knee him in the groin and leap over his writhing body and take off up the path.

Not wanting to alert all the guests to the incident that would surely be a household scandal and would possibly frighten the ladies, Dean calmed himself outside the French window before slipping back inside. Nevertheless, the high color in his face attracted Castiel’s immediate attention, and Dean gestured to the attached parlor in order to talk to the alpha alone.

Castiel wasted no time extricating himself from the game of whist where he had been losing amiably out of utter boredom. “Dean,” he breathed to assure himself all was well as he entered the parlor, but the scents that assaulted his nose only served to assure him that things were very much not well at all. “Dean, what happened?” he asked bluntly, voice dangerously low.

“That oily alpha, Mister Brady, attacked me on the garden path.”

The alpha’s eyes, heavy browed, darted to the window before he picked up the nearest candlestick and held it aloft while circling Dean.

The omega bore the inspection with a roll of his eyes and waited for Castiel to settle in front of him again. The alpha set the candle down and enfolded Dean in his embrace. The omega trembled slightly, like a wounded animal, but Castiel did not mention it for fear of hurting the fierce omega’s pride.

“Ugh,” he huffed. “That knave’s scent is all over you.”

Dean pressed in closer to Castiel, his rightful alpha, and rubbed their cheeks together in an attempt to overwrite the despicable man’s scent. For his part, Castiel’s fingertips sought to reassure themselves that Dean was whole, and the alpha touched Dean cautiously but firmly as he tried to calm his wrathful urges. Castiel knew that if he stepped away from Dean at that very moment, he would seek out Brady and kill him.

In that moment, Sam and Jess passed by the doorway, and stopped. Sam’s brows were lost in his hair as he regarded his brother in this hardly familiar alpha’s embrace in a dim and empty parlor. For her part, Princess Jessica looked less shocked and more titillated at the observation. But Sam was clearly annoyed. He cleared his throat loudly.

Dean slid away from his alpha’s body slowly. And apparently, the color in his cheeks had not been improved by scenting his alpha because Sam’s face visibly darkened when he came eye to eye with his brother.

“What is this?” he demanded, and Dean was impressed at what an imperious ass Sam had made of himself in such a short tenure of nobility.

“I was outside,” Dean began, “in the garden when that alpha grabbed me—”

“What?” Sam demanded, stepping into the room fully with a gesture to his wife to remain in the corridor.

“Calm down, Sam. I mean— don’t calm down, but don’t jump to conclusions either.” By this time, Sam had positioned himself between Castiel and Dean and was puffed up to show off all his considerable bulk.

“Tell me exactly what happened, Dean,” the protective brother growled in his alpha voice.

Dean, somewhat stunned, complied, “He grabbed my ass and licked my face and—”

Both alphas exclaimed in outrage, “What?!” And Sam turned to Castiel, whose sole focus was Dean, so he didn’t see it coming.

When Samuel, thirteenth Duke of Winchester punched Castiel, erstwhile thirteenth Duke of Winchester, in the eye, Her Royal Highness Princess Jessica rushed into the room while the lowly Dean Winchester wrestled his brother onto a convenient settee. The princess sat on Sam to keep him still while Dean turned to Castiel and offered up his handkerchief to mop the blood from his brow.

“Damn it, Sammy,” Dean muttered at the blood.

“I’m fine, Dean,” Castiel groused.

“Dean, is it?” Sam growled from the settee. “Since when are you on such obviously familiar terms with my brother, Colonel Milton?”

Castiel opened his mouth to answer, but Dean’s hand immediately covered the alpha’s lips. “You don’t need to answer that asinine question.” The cut was bleeding steadily, and Dean was concerned for Castiel’s beautiful tailcoat and waistcoat, not to mention his alpha’s swelling eye. “Come on,” he decided, taking the colonel’s hand. “This needs tending to by someone more skilled than me and my handkerchief.”

Castiel grumbled but allowed Dean to tug him toward the doorway where Dean turned to address his brother once more. “First of all, _your grace_ ,” he jeered at his brother, “Colonel Milton informed you of our intent to marry yesterday, to which you gave your blessing, and secondly, but more importantly, it was your son-of-a-bitch bodyguard,” Dean paused to turn aside to Jess, “I beg your pardon, your highness,” and then he continued to Sam pointing his finger into Sam’s chest, “who mauled me in the garden. I left scars on his slimy little hands to prove it.” And with a bow to Jessica, Dean dragged Castiel to Rowena for physic.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which a search provides no fruit and the alphas come to an understanding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (medicinal use of leeches)

### 

After a night of leeches and herbs on his eyelid to stem the swelling and staunch the blood, Castiel was feeling none too chipper in the morning.

The garrulous chatter of the breakfast room further annoyed him as he selected a hardboiled egg and toast from the sideboard and slid into his chair.

“I absolutely insist upon it,” her highness said with the clatter of her butter knife upon her plate.

Her sister and the duchess both tacitly agreed but sadly did not remain taciturn for long once Lady Charlie replied, “Insist all you want, your highness, but I do not require your service in this matter.”

“Come, now, Lady Charlie, this is pride talking,” Duchess Amelia insisted.

“Too true,” the younger Princess Daphne piped in, “why, Papa used to do this sort of thing for his friends all the time, and no one at the Royal Society thinks any less of them.”

Castiel thumbed through the morning’s post but finding no letters addressed to him, he buttered his toast while the shrill noise washed over him until Charlie dragged him unwittingly into it.

“Don’t you think, Colonel Milton?” she probed.

Unsure of what he had been asked, Castiel put the toast in his mouth and made a non-committal bob of his head, which each side of the argument took as fuel for its case.

“You see!” Jessica insisted. “It is the done thing, Lady Charlie!”

At that point, in full pique, Lady Charlie stood abruptly from her chair, letting her napkin tumble from her trousers’ lap, and picked up her hat as if to leave. “Well, much as I thank you for your interest, your highness, it shan’t be done to me! When the Society invites me to join them, it will be because I have eliminated every insipid argument against me with my own ingenuity and cleverness rather than by default to a royal patron.” She bowed very curtly and made to depart, only stopping in the doorway to address Castiel. “Colonel, I shall be returning to the capital tomorrow on an errand for necessary parts that Dea--- Mister Winchester and I need in order to continue our various projects. Do let me know this evening if there is anything I can procure for you on my journey.” She bowed again, placed her top hat over her chignon, and vanished, leaving the two princesses and the duchess still aghast at their breakfasts.

Castiel thought Charlie was quite right in her righteous fury, now that he had the gist of it, but his mind could not focus on comprising a list for her so long as an important detail was outstanding.

After the noise was at a lull for a moment, Castiel sought the answer to his conundrum, “Pray, where are the gentlemen, this morning?” he ventured.

He cursed himself for drawing their attention to him almost immediately, as it caused the ladies all to notice the awful purple and green of his eye. Like a flock of frightened chickens, their voices quickly took on an alarming quality once again, but this time the noise was directed at him.

“Oh my, your poor eye!”

“Does it hurt terribly, Colonel?”

“It really is very gruesome.”

“Is that a stitch of thread in your eyebrow?”

“His grace has everyone out searching for some scoundrel.”

“Is it true you used leeches on it?”

“That must have smelled ghastly.”

“Oh, not really, Daphne. I had them on my wrist as a child, and—“

“Pardon me,” Castiel broke in as politely as he could, considering the sudden overwhelming concern he felt from the single comment directed in answer to the question he had posed. “Do you mean B—the scoundrel—was not apprehended last evening?”

The two younger ladies looked to Jessica, and the princess considered. Castiel could tell that while she was in the confidence of her husband, the ladies were not privy to the details of the incident.

“My understanding,” the princess began carefully, “is that after Mister Winchester encountered the ruffian out in the garden and raised the alarm, the stranger,” she emphasized this word pointedly, “might have taken one of the horses up the towpath. At least it was suggested by Ketch this morning when the stable master reported a horse outside the paddock on her own in that direction. So Lord Balthazar and Lord Milton and my husband and his brother have gone with some of the men to look for traces.”

The youngest lady, her highness Jessica’s sister, looked delighted by the intrigue. With wide eyes she began to speculate, “When I have ridden Formosa in that direction, I have encountered Lord Crowley on occasion. I wonder if his grace has gone to seek the villain at Lord Crowley’s estate.”

If Castiel briefly mused over why the young princess had been riding her Arabian in Lord Crowley’s direction and whether she was bored enough and husband-hungry enough to settle on Crowley, well he did not voice these ideas nor even entertain them for more than the briefest moment.

The duchess added, “It is curious, though, that his grace has allowed his brother, an omega, to go on such a mission, isn’t it? He should have instead called upon Mister Brady to go.”

The younger princess liked this notion, “Or had Mister Brady stay here to watch over the house. I hear he is a very good shot. Leaving us omegas unprotected seems a bit short-sighted don’t you agree?”

Jessica clarified her misunderstanding, “We are not unprotected, for we are well within Colonel Milton’s able care, are we not?”

“But Colonel Milton is injured!”

“The scoundrel already bested him in a fight last night!”

“I beg your pardon,” Castiel intervened again, “but I did not receive this injury from said scoundrel, and I am quite well and capable this morning, certainly capable of protecting you ladies or of helping in the hunt, whichever his grace should deem most fitting.”

Jessica’s sister grumbled childishly, “All of us omegas should have been kept together in the house. Even if Mister Winchester is not as weak as a lady, he would be safer here, and we would be even that much safer with him here with us. He is stronger than we are, after all.”

Castiel stood, leaving his eggshell unbroken, and counted his breaths in order to keep his movements unhurried as he bowed politely and elegantly to the small congregation. “My ladies, as much as I have enjoyed the delights of your company at my breakfast, I feel it is my duty to excuse myself and look into the state of things after hearing your very reasonable concerns about omega protection. I assure you I will make certain your safety is guaranteed while this villain is at large.” Without giving them an opportunity to delay or doubt him, Castiel disappeared through the doorway.

Outside, Castiel found one of the new stable boys who had been hired on from town. Barely tall enough to reach a horse’s withers, the lad was busy oiling a pile of old saddles and tack that had been resurrected from storage in the barn loft. It looked as though they had not fared too well, but since the leather was of the best quality, with a few days of elbow grease they would look fine again. Any frayed pieces could be replaced.

“Good morning,” Castiel greeted.

The boy glanced up from his work as he muttered, “How can I help you, sir?” but then he did a double take upon noticing the multicolored mess that was Castiel’s eye.

“Do you know who I am, lad?” he asked in what he hoped was a friendly manner.

“You’re Colonel Milton. I saw you in town with Mr. Winchester.”

Castiel smiled and nodded his head, “I’m afraid I don’t recall your name, though. I’ve met so many people here.”

“They call me Jesse, sir, _erm_ , Colonel,” he wiped his hands on a shabby little rag, no doubt anticipating an errand.

“Very well, Jesse, Do you know where Mr. Winchester is this morning?”

“He took the big mare into the south field with, _erm_ ,” he thought for a moment, “with the shorter fellow. Is he Lord Milton?

Castiel nodded. “Yes. And Lord Milton is my brother.”

“I thought so, sir, but he don’t look much like you.”

“No, I don’t suppose he does.” Castiel withdrew a tuppence from his pocket and fiddled with it in his fingers to draw the lad’s interest. “And where is the duke?”

“Big Winchester, you mean, Colonel?”

“Yes.”

“He went with the other one. Bally, I think he called him, to call on Lord Crowley and alert him there’s a thief in the neighborhood.”

“A thief?” Castiel was taken aback.

The lad leaned in close to speak to Castiel confidentially. “Between you an’ me, his grace only said it to keep the omegas from worrying. It’s obvious the escaped lunatic is an alpha.”

“Escaped lunatic?” It dawned on Castiel that the child wanted his story to be worthy of tuppence, so he was embellishing.

“Ain’t that the right word? Sometimes my da’ brings a newspaper from the capital, and it’s always got an exciting story about escaping lunatic alphas murdering poor omegas in their beds.”

Castiel handed the coin over to Jesse slowly, pondering what to say. “In the city, perhaps that happens, but where on earth would a lunatic escape from here?”

Jesse shrugged as his fist closed over the coin.

“Do you read the newspaper, Jesse?” Castiel couldn’t help but be curious about the state of educational affairs in Winchester.

He scoffed. “My ma used to be in service in a grand kitchen and learned to read there. She reads the stories to us before cutting the papers for the shithouse.”

Castiel wondered what other lurid nonsense Jesse wiped his bottom with, but he had learned all he needed for the moment and bowed out of that conversation.

It would do him no good to tear off into the fields, down the towpath, or along the road, he reasoned. He had no way of knowing what places had already been searched and which direction needed attention. As much as he hated it, he decided to remain at the house “to protect” the ladies. He decided that he could fill his time with making a list of things the household required from the capital, since Lady Charlie had mentioned she will be heading there for more supplies, herself. No doubt Balthazar, and probably Gabriel, would want to go with her.

Normally, even Castiel might be eager for a few days’ interlude in the city, just to escape the now-crowded castle. Plus, Castiel had an important letter to deliver to the palace. But he was in no mood to deliver it personally. Though he had written it, painstakingly and precisely on the day after Dean had raced to Crowley’s with the pertinent news from the Regent, he had not sent it by the mail coach because he technically still had need of a discussion with the duke before doing so, and he had hoped there might be some delay before any of their party went to the capital in order to deliver it anyway. But alas. It seemed the delay was destined to be very brief, indeed. Castiel would prepare the letter for his brother to deliver on his behalf as he prepared himself to talk to Dean’s brother about its contents. He gingerly touched his bruised eye and sighed.

The more he willed everyone home for their sundry discussions, the longer their absences would seem, so Castiel straightened his shoulders and went back inside the house in order to make the best use of his time and get the list prepared for Lady Charlie.

Thus Castiel was at the back table in the kitchen with Ellen and Rowena when commotion on the stairs and the ringing of various bells signaled someone was home.

He had just written down the order for more laudanum, a necessity in a house as busy as this one had recently become, when an unfamiliar pitch of anxiety sprang up in his gut. He instantly grew annoyed with himself for having physical nerves at the anticipation of talking to Sam.

Kevin hurried into the kitchen from the back stairs and began gathering the plates Ellen and Kaia had earlier prepared for luncheon. It was a variety of cold meats, cheeses, fruits, nuts, and muffins, considering anything hot might have been ruined by waiting, and the kitchen had not known when to expect hungry people to return, demanding to be fed. Claire helped to carry the tea upstairs, and Castiel folded his list.

“If you think of anything further the household will require, please send someone up to me this evening. I want to be able to provide everyone’s wants to Lady Charlie in good time.”

“Of course we will, Colonel,” Rowena assured him, “thank you.”

Castiel bowed to the ladies. Instead of trouncing up the back stairs like Claire had just done, he set out for the front staircase because he intended to take his time walking up to the golden parlor where, according to Kevin, the Duke had decided to set himself to eat.

“Dean, you eat like a child. At least sit down;” the first thing he heard when he found the golden parlor was the duke’s voice scolding his older brother, and Castiel couldn’t help but bristle. Inside the fussily wallpapered room, Dean stood at the mantle shoving walnuts into his mouth already full of cheese. Castiel bit the inside of his cheek in order not to smile at his omega’s antics.

Beside the great window, which had a marvelous aspect of the southern fields, Sam Winchester sat at a small table ornamented in gold leaf. Similar tables littered the room with Balthazar and Gabriel resting their plates upon them. Another two tables and chairs were unoccupied but apparently not to Dean’s liking because he chose to stand well away from them on his own.

“Colonel Milton,” the duke greeted Castiel. “Pull up a chair and take some refreshment with us. We’ll tell you about our hunt.”

“Fruitless hunt,” Dean chimed in with a sour tone.

“That’s a pretty bruise, Cassie. How’s your vision?” Balthazar asked Castiel as the colonel filled a plate from the kitchen trays and watched Dean fidget with the golden tinderbox on the mantle.

Dean looked at him, too, scowling, but interested in his reply to Balthazar’s question.

“My vision is not impeded,” he replied succinctly. Instead of taking one of the chairs, Castiel set his plate on the mantle next to Dean’s and stood by the omega. He allowed himself a moment to bask in Dean’s scent, even though it betrayed his current mood of irritation.

“Good thing, too,” Dean groused at the same time Sam sighed and raised his voice to scold his brother.

“Now you have him doing it too!” Sam complained.

“Doing what?” Gabriel asked, too intent on his food to have noticed anything wrong.

“Dean, when I told you to be careful with the tables, I did not mean you should not sit at all,” Sam pressed.  
“Oh, I’m sorry, your grace, but I think ‘make sure you don’t scratch the gold leaf,’ was a pretty clear admonishment, considering you didn’t direct it at anyone but me. And by the way, that was an apology. Did you catch it? Apologies are all the fashion these days, I hear. You should try one, _your grace_.” Dean rattled the tinderbox, also painted in gold leaf, for emphasis.

“There is no need to take that tone with me, Dean,” the duke pouted.

Gabriel was barely able to contain his glee at the display of childishness, and Balthazar exchanged a raised eyebrow with Castiel, but none of the Miltons commented, lest they make a _faux pas_ in a family quarrel.

 _Damn it_ , Castiel thought to himself. _If they will be my family, I must settle what I can of this._

Besides, he would prefer Sam Winchester be calm when he discussed his predicament.

“What news of the hunt, your grace?” he began, hoping that by redirecting the duke’s focus, he could calm Sam down and make him forget to be annoyed with his brother. Dean, meanwhile, was clearly set to be annoyed with Sam until an apology was produced, but Castiel had no power over that.

With a sigh, the duke drained his wine glass, “No one admits to having seen him. I suppose that his disappearance proves his guilt, as I can think of no other reason for Brady to vanish from the party.”

“Most unfortunate,” Castiel remarked.

“Yes,” Dean parroted, gaping at Castiel. “So unfortunate.” Then he turned to his brother, “And? Aren’t you forgetting something, Sammy?”

The duke set his mouth, and Castiel placed a hand on Dean’s back in hopes of calming him. He did not need an apology for the blackened eye, as long as he could perhaps play on the duke’s unspoken guilt to secure his blessing regarding Dean.

Unconsciously, Dean stepped closer to Castiel then, but unfortunately Gabriel was not ready for the show to end.

“With as free-handed as Cassie appears to be, maybe his grace had it right, in the first place,” he quipped, noticing the way Castiel touched Dean.

If looks could kill, Castiel’s eyes would have smited Gabriel in the hideously upholstered yellow chair in which he sat, and Dean’s look would have nailed the coffin.

“Enough,” Sam said tiredly, standing. “I think I need to speak to my brother alone for a moment, gentlemen,” he said. Gabriel and Balthazar both stood, Gabriel grabbing his goblet and Balthazar snatching the bottle.

With two very polite bows, they moved for the door, but Dean’s hand clung to Castiel’s jacket, and since the colonel was of the same mind as his omega, the alpha stayed put.

“Colonel Milton?” Sam asked.

“Oh shut up, Sammy.”

“May name is not, nor has it ever been _Sammy_ , so please desist, Dean.”

“Oh please dry up, you supreme ass!”

“Both of you, please,” Castiel cut in. “My apologies for the intrusion, your grace, but a matter has arisen about which I do need to speak with you most urgently.”

Castiel turned to Dean and deliberately ran his fingertips through the omega’s hair at his temple, letting the lace at his wrist hover near Dean’s nose for a moment, Castiel stroked his omega’s face and looked into his eyes in such a way as to communicate the import of what he was about to do.

Surpassing Castiel’s expectations of understanding, Dean nodded and quietly left the room, shutting the door with a click behind him.

“So it’s like that,” Sam demanded, arms crossed over his chest.

“It is,” Castiel replied.

While Castiel was fitting his next words together, the duke asked. “Have you, < _cough_ >, is he, _erm_ … I’ve never known my brother to--”

“I assure you our relations have remained entirely chaste,” Castiel cut in, although his face heated a little as he recalled pressing Dean against the wallpaper at Crowley’s.

Sam’s shoulders relaxed slightly and he ran a hand through his hair. “It is not easy, being in charge of my brother’s care. It is such a reversal for us.”

Castiel, taken somewhat aback by the duke’s admission, decided not to delay the bad news he had to relay.

“I am beholden to the crown,” he began, earning Sam’s interest. Castiel stood square-shouldered with his hands behind his back like the soldier he was and continued, meeting the earnest hazel eyes directly as he spoke. “The crimes that I am paying for are not my own, and although the king dismissed them and released me from all obligations in exchange for my years in the army, his son did not agree with that resolution. In fact the Prince Regent has seized upon your new relationship with him in order to press me back into service.”

“What?”

Trying to keep the frustration from his face, Castiel turned to the window. The horses had recently been released into the paddock for afternoon exercise, and he watched them play in the tall spring grass. “In exchange for leave to marry your brother, my true mate, the regent has insisted that I lead a campaign in the West Indies to quell uprisings against British trade ships.”

“The West Indies?” Sam exclaimed, setting his goblet upon the table heavily enough to chip the paint. Castiel made motions to quell him, lest Dean should overhear.

“I do not want Dean to know this now,” he explained before charging on with his talk. “This is not my kind of soldiering, your grace. When I led men against Napoleon, it was to unseat a madman intent on amassing wealth for himself under the guise of helping the poor of his nation to recover from the devastation of their revolution. Now our prince regent is asking me to line his pockets with the skins of the slaves being traded in the Americas.” Castiel fell into the nearest chair. “I have no taste for this business, but now that I have met Dean, I can think of no way to—” Castiel’s strong fist tapped against his lips. “I am not a strong enough man to turn my back on Dean Winchester forever, so I must sell my soul for two years. I must make the regent’s cronies who own the trade ships in the West Indies very rich men. I have no choice.”

Sam was quiet as he, too, sat heavily in a chair and regarded the alpha before him. “And you haven’t told Dean?”

Castiel shook his head. “I don’t mind being shot, and I don’t mind hacking a man’s limbs apart in battle, but I am a coward when it comes to hurting Dean. When I received the news from the Regent, I told Dean half of it: that the crown will allow us to marry with your consent.” He looked at Sam with eyes the color of the vast oceans he must cross for his omega, “But I could not tell him we must wait two years to marry.”

Sam’s voice was quiet and grave like the kind of voice that doctors use in a sick room, “But you must tell him, Colonel.”

Castiel smiled tightly, “Does that mean we have your consent, your grace?”

Sam regarded Castiel’s angry purple eye and seemed to think it over. “True mate, you said?”

Castiel nodded.

At length, the duke held forward his hand, “I think if we will be brothers, you should call me Sam.”


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which three alphas visit Glassblowers Street and find it a very lively place

### 

Midday following, Lord Milton and Lord Balthazar accompanied Lady Charlie on a trip to the capital with the household’s shopping list. Charlie needed to get more parts constructed for Dean’s light mechanism design that had made its successful debut at the party, and she had a special list and purse of coin from Dean for some fine pieces made on a much smaller scale for a new electric light device he was building to be “of a size one can carry about,” he had explained.

The need for various supplies for building in Winchester had also grown exponentially as Gabriel had shown his designs to Sam and received the duke’s and Princess Jessica’s heartfelt promise of financial backing to begin building houses in the town.

Likewise Lord Balthazar was in a spending mood, and in addition to purchasing a water pump for the town, he wanted to see to it that Lady Charlie had whatever she needed to make her lighting project a success. The brothers Milton were determined that Winchester would have electric lights by Christmas. To ensure Lady Charlie of his good faith in her ultimate success, Balthazar was on the journey to try to bring some craftspeople to Winchester to settle in the new houses and build the lights to her specifications.

In exchange for mortgaging some people into Gabriel’s new houses, Balthazar was to front the money for skilled craftspeople to get the town on its feet, in general. Together, Sam, Gabe, and Balthazar stood to make a great deal of money in the venture. They had tried to convince Castiel to throw his small inheritance into the scheme, but he preferred sitting back and watching Dean as he scribbled numerous notes about which persons from his old neighborhood they should call upon in the city.

The traveling party was jolly along the road, but Charlie was tired from riding by the time they reached a livery that would take in their horses in the capital, and she vowed to buy a speedy but comfortable rig for the journey back out to the country.

Dean had given Charlie an address on Glassblowers Street for one of the few shops that still blew glass there, and Missouri Moseley and her granddaughter, Patience, kept a tidy storefront and a small but very busy glass oven at the end of the street, beside a mews. It was hazy on the morning when the trio discovered the narrow street. They found that in the mews was a smith, and nearby there was a cart advertising farriering. There was, however, no glass being blown, no hammering of iron, no horses or mules to shoe. Instead, there was a crier on a box at the head of the mews waving a broadsheet and yelling about taxes.

Lady Charlie, Lord Balthazar, and Gabriel, Lord Milton, stopped to listen before finding a child to send with a coin to fetch the glassblower.

After hearing that the entire street was going to be leveled to make way for the new Grand Boulevard the Regent was planning as a monument to his battlefield successes (at which Gabriel scoffed loudly and Balthazar coughed into his kerchief), Lady Charlie fished a penny from her purse and took a broadsheet from the child standing in the doorway of a nearby shop.

“Look at this,” she said, turning to Gabriel and Balthazar who were already looking intently over her shoulder. “It says that all of these shops are in arrears and will be seized within a fortnight if they do not pay their tax and rent owed.”

Gabriel leaned over the paper, “...ranging from two pounds to twenty!” he muttered. “Where are any of these people going to get twenty pounds?”

“Precisely the point,” Balthazar replied cynically.

The three of them exchanged arch looks.

“If only we knew someone with a seat in parliament who could speak on their behalf,” Charlie suggested, looking to Balthazar and Gabriel.

“I shall speak, but no one listens to me, anymore. I am old hat,” Balthazar replied, his mind already bent toward calling upon his various landed cousins about a political coalition to curtail the regent’s activities in the capital. The crown had a proclivity for stealing from the poor to give to the rich, and although any fair-minded fellow could see it for the thievery it was, Parliament was short on fair-minded fellows. As long as the regent lined his cronies’ pockets along with his own, no one with any clout protested the kind of outrage that was destroying Glassblowers Street.

“I haven’t spoken on policy in ages,” Gabriel muttered, more to himself than anyone. “Are you thinking of a coalition, brother dear?”

“I am,” Balthazar agreed.

“Plus, Sam Winchester hasn’t even taken his seat yet,” Gabe said. “Everyone’s dying to hear what the _new_ duke will say. At least for a day, he will have the ears in parliament.”

“Would young Sam even speak for them though?” Balthazar wondered.

Charlie nodded. “He grew up here,” she insisted. “He knows these people!”

“Yes,” Balthazar rebutted cynically, “but he has the golden parlor now. Does he remember that he knows these people?”

At that moment an older woman with careworn hands and dark skin appeared beside the trio. Speaking to Charlie, she said, “You must be looking for me, my lady,” And she smiled in an infectious manner.

“Well,” Lady Charlie said, removing her hat and bowing politely, “I am looking for Missouri Moseley.”

The woman curtseyed and replied, “I am she. May I know your name, my lady?”

Gabriel stepped forward to perform the office of a gentleman as the highest ranking among them, and introduced all three with a courteous bow and a doffing of his hat. “I am Gabriel, Lord Milton, this is Lord Balthazar of Milton, my brother, and this is our esteemed friend, Lady Celeste, though you must call her Lady Charlie, instead.” As he finished, Balthazar and Charlie both bowed very elegantly.

“It is my pleasure to make your acquaintances. Won’t you come inside?”

Bemused, but delighted by the woman, Charlie and her two hangers-on followed her into the glassblower’s shop Dean had directed them to.

While the gentlemen looked around at the multicolored menagerie, the baubles and bottles, the snifters and snuff jars, Charlie pulled the drawing Dean had given her from her pocket.

As soon as Ms. Moseley saw the pencil sketch, she smiled even more broadly. “I know that hand,” she said. “How is--” she paused a moment, “Mr. Winchester?”

Charlie grinned and leaned in closer, “Dean is grand!” she shared. “He is doing very well at Winchester, and I don’t want to gossip, but—”

Missouri cut her off. “It’s not gossip if I guess. He’s found his alpha.” She said it as a statement rather than a question and at Charlie’s giddy confirmation, she carried on. “That boy deserves all the happiness the good Lord sees fit to give him. In all the years I knew him, he never did, said, or thought a single selfish thing.”

“He has not changed, I assure you.”

Missouri turned her attention to the drawing and added a mark here and there with her own piece of charcoal. Charlie noted that the woman could not even afford a pencil!

“Does this really say that he wants thirty-six like this?”

Charlie affirmed it.

“Well, I don’t know where I will get—” She cut herself off and then pulled a basket from under her counter and began to take things from the shop shelves and place them into the basket. Garnet, cobalt, and emerald trinkets clinked together. When she reached for a perfume bottle the color of new leaves on the first day of spring, Charlie stopped her.

“What are you doing?” Charlie asked.

“Dean needs these bulbs, but I haven’t had supplies for an order this big since the regent took the throne. I’ll just re-make some of this glass that’s gathering dust around here.”

Gabriel and Balthazar had turned their attention to the shopkeeper by this time, and both men put their hands up to stop her.

“Madam, please,” Balthazar protested. “These are works of art.”

She smiled sadly, “Art don’t put food on the table, sir, but Dean Winchester will if I make him his order.”

“How much?” Charlie asked. “I have Dean’s purse!” she rattled it.

“Nonsense, Lady Charlie,” Lord Milton broke in with Lord Balthazar smiling over his shoulder. “I have a five pound banknote right here,” he reached into his breast pocket and began unfolding the paper money.

“What in Hades’ name are you doing carrying around that kind of money, Gabriel?” Balthazar scolded.

Looking smug, Gabriel flattened the note on the counter, “Why I was hoping to purchase a birthday gift for you, dear brother.”

Balthazar rolled his eyes at the unlikely story, and Charlie snatched the note from Gabriel’s hand. Holding it out to Missouri, she said, “Will this be enough to get the supplies Dean’s order requires?”

“More than enough,” the glassblower answered in awe, eyes wide and not daring to reach out for the money.

At that moment, a loud bang sounded in the street, and a moment later a breathless young woman entered the shop, causing the cheerful bell above the door to tinkle. Even the bell was elegantly made from delicate glass.

When Charlie saw the new member of their party, her hand dropped the five pound note onto the counter, and all sense left her head. This was the most beautiful young woman she had ever seen.

“Patience, my dear, what is happening on the street?” Missouri moved to her granddaughter, who looked ashen and fearful.

“Two dragoons arrived, grandmamma. One of them shot Benny because he was holding a sword. It wasn’t even sharp! He had just picked it up to start back to work as Reverend Jim finished his speechmaking.”

Seeing that the damsel was about to swoon, Balthazar had rushed to her side with a small stool that had rested by the door. She gratefully sat, gave Balthazar an appreciative smile, and then noticed Charlie, who had taken to a sudden fit of growling.

Gabriel, quick to understand, moved his brother away from young Patience by dragging at his elbow just as Missouri said to Charlie, “Now, now, little alpha, we don’t have time for that this morning.”

Patience, staring at Charlie in alarm, asked, “Who are these people, grandmamma?”

“Don’t worry about them, dear girl. Where’s Benny? How bad is it?” she was bustling with her shawl and a small basket with pieces of clean muslin folded to the brim.

Patience broke out of her eye lock with Charlie and turned. “Bobby is tending him. After the old grouch berated the soldiers in language that would make the ladies on Balsam Street blush, they left affronted that an old man would talk to them like an officer. Bobby went to work right away on Benny, but—yes. The bandages,” she finished, seeing her grandmother’s basket.

“Alright, Patience, you may stay here and get to know your alpha, Lady Charlie. If one of you gentlemen wouldn’t mind staying to assuage Patience’s nerves?” she asked.

Balthazar bowed and said, “At your service, madam.”

“Alright then, I will return to complete our transaction, but I beg your pardon for the delay.”

She left, and, unbidden, Gabriel followed on her tail.

In the mews, a crowd was gathered at the smithy. Missouri pushed through it, scolding the gawkers by name, and swatting them where it was necessary in order to make her way through.

Within the dark and sooty confines of the smith’s shop, a bearded man in rough, homespun woolen trousers and a thriftily patched blouse with sleeves rolled past the elbows bent over a man in pain—obvious by his ashen face and the throaty groans he emitted. The source of the pain was evident. His left thigh was cut open, just below his breech, and the bearded gentlemen probed into the tissue for the bullet.

“You old fool,” Missouri muttered at the bearded man. “Why didn’t you bring him to me. This light in here is terrible, not to mention the dirt.”

“He didn’t feel much like walking,” the man replied in a vaguely Yorkshire accent and a very gruff voice. “Who’s the new man?” he threw in, never having even looked up from his bloody task.

“Gabriel, Lord Milton,” she replied. “Come to save us all from debtor’s prison.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows at that but otherwise stayed mum and away from the window. He knew enough from his years in the wars not to block a surgeon’s light.

She gave him the introduction next, “This is Bobby Singer,” she stated, of the surgeon, “and that is Benny Smith.”

Very soon, the bearded surgeon held up a deformed chunk of metal, dripping in red, and showed it to the patient, a burly man, presumably the smith, if his blackened hands were anything to go by.

“For god’s sake man, stop admiring the damn thing, and sew me up,” Benny grumped.

“You didn’t give him enough laudanum,” Missouri said.

“He’ll need it more to get through the night,” Bobby replied.

Nodding, Missouri made no reply, merely nudging Bobby out of the way when his hand holding the needle shook. Cutting a man open was hard on the nerves. Missouri took up the sewing, making quick work of it. With a generous splash of whiskey that made the patient shriek, in a very manly fashion, she wiped down the leg with one of her swatches of muslin and then went to wrapping it very securely in long strips of the fabric.

Seemingly to Gabriel, she said, with her back still turned to him, “I keep bandages on hand. Always burns and cuts in my line of work.”

Gabriel merely watched the tidy process, noting that the bandages were soaked with blood already.

“We can’t leave you here, Benny, and my place is closest. Will you take a bed under my roof?”

The man, clearly at the brink of what he could stand, nodded in the affirmative.

Missouri pressed forward to get him settled. “Alright, Bobby, you stay here and lock Benny’s place up. Lord Milton, stay close to push the nosy neighbors out of our way. I’ll grab some of these lazy onlookers to carry Benny inside,” the thrifty and formidable woman instructed.

“I’ve got a cot in my wagon,” Bobby cut in. “Make it easier to carry him. Easier on his leg.”

Missouri nodded that she understood and disappeared out the door. Moments later, she was back with four men and a wood-framed army cot that looked old enough to have been in the colonial wars.

Good thing she brought four big men, too, because Benny was a beast. His bulk and muscle made him heavy, and his leg made him delicate, a troublesome combination. Still, with a great deal of grunting and sweating and a bit of cursing, they got him through the back door of Missouri’s shop, which opened to her living quarters, and she pointed to a spot by the hearth for the men to deposit their load. After shooing the men away with her thanks, Missouri raked the ashes in the fire, checking to see if any burning coals remained. Her activity caused Gabriel to look around, and he noticed several things.

This was a home that had once seen prosperity. The cupboards with glass doors showed a fine porcelain tea service, some of the cups chipped, obviously much used, but once quite dear. The curtains, though faded with age, were of handsome damask, and though old, they were washed clean. The furnishings, too, had once been comfortable upholstered pieces, though now they were patched and lumpy. And the wallpapers, curling at the seams, were of a pattern Gabriel recognized from his own mother’s sitting room when he was a boy. But prosperity had left this place, long ago.

Two portraits, charcoal drawings on papers with a stationer’s mark on them, hung beside the chair where Gabriel had been motioned to sit. They showed two army soldiers, one with a uniform from a different age, one from the more recent wars with France. Since the subjects of these portraits were not present in the house, Gabriel guessed at what happened to the family’s prospects.

Gabriel rose from his seat and went to the street to summon one of the boys loitering by the cheese monger’s shop. He selected a ha'penny from his pocket and held it high as he spoke with the lad. After having the boy repeat his instructions back to him, Gabriel handed the coin over with a promise, “I’ll give you a shilling when you return if you get everything right and thriftily.” The boy’s eyes went wide as his mouth went slack before he took the coin and ran off to complete his mission.

Soon enough, a dustman arrived with a barrow of coal. Most of it looked to have been scavenged from other people’s hearths, but it was fine coal, all the same. Missouri watched as the man filled her coal bin and then departed with Gabriel’s money in his hand.

Next, a butcher arrived with a young ham, tightly trussed and “stuffed with apricots” if the man was to be believed. He read the skepticism on Gabriel’s face and held the pig up for a sniff. Sure enough, the unmistakable aroma wafted from the ham, and Gabriel took it with a smile and paid the man happily.

Patience, Lady Charlie, and Lord Balthazar had all shuffled into the sitting room by the time the next knock came at the door. This was a grocer with a sizable crate of goods. Gabriel beckoned Missouri to abandon making tea to inspect the items and make certain they were of a fine quality. She began to protest when, after unpacking flour, sugar, and tea, she also found coffee and chocolate! These were unthinkable luxuries. Gabriel waved her off and paid the grocer for his goods.

Things carried on in this way. A greengrocer was next with vegetables and fruits. Then a dairyman arrived with milk and eggs. The cheesemonger was summoned for some of the “finest cheddar in the capital.”

Soon Patience and Missouri and Balthazar were all crowded around the table preparing a feast. Charlie hovered near Patience all the while, and when Gabriel heard the girl tease Charlie for not knowing how to cook, he knew everything would be fine.

Luckily, the wine man showed up in time for everyone to have a glass before dinner.

Finally, a clothier knocked at the door. With him was the lad Gabriel had sent, panting and dirty, obviously having run dutifully to each task. Gabriel took pity on the poor, tired boy, and instead of the shilling he had promised, he gave the boy half a crown and six lovely apples in a string bag with a wink. Delighted, the boy pocketed the coin and hurried off to share his spoils.

From the cloth man, Gabriel bought a bolt of muslin, like he had seen Missouri generously use for Benny’s leg, and paid the man to be on his way.

Through all the preparations, Benny slept fitfully, and Bobby tended to him with a bottle of laudanum when the pain was too much to take. Gabriel cursed himself that he hadn’t thought to send the boy for a druggist, but he could always do so later.

Over dinner, with everyone but Benny crowded at the table, Missouri said, “My home is blessed today with more than enough hands to do the cooking and cleaning, more than enough mouths to do the smiling and talking, and more than enough food for the eating and drinking. As much as I must thank Gabriel, Lord Milton for this bounty, I must also thank Dean Winchester for being the thread that brought us together.” Everyone followed her in raising their glasses in the air, “To Dean Winchester,” they said.

The meal was delightful, too. The ham was baked to perfection, sweet with the apricots that had oozed out during cooking to make an aromatic sauce. The wine had their hearts light and their bellies warm, and the little chocolate tarts Missouri had made for dessert were deliciously bitter and delightfully sweet accompanied by tiny porcelain tea cups of coffee with milk.

These tarts, she confessed, were one of Dean’s favorite treats—not as beloved as her fruit tarts, but still a favorite, just the same.

Throughout dinner, the Moseleys regaled the trio of gentlefolk with stories from the Winchester brothers’ youth. Laughter abounded, with a few wry glances exchanged between the threesome when Sam’s exploits were brought up. The Glassblowers Street locals were not blind to these exchanges, and both Missouri and Bobby’s concern for the new duke grew. After all, they had seen Sam enter the university, and they had seen him acquire a new set of friends, and they had seen him accept money that Dean had been saving for his own new (used) winter wardrobe to use on opera tickets. It did not take a genius to discern the changes that had come over Sam Winchester since being made a duke.

As evening descended, Charlie was loath to tear herself away, but she saw good sense when Gabriel threatened to bring a constable around with a complaint that she was making an alpha annoyance of herself.

With promises to return the next day to inspect a model version of the small bulb Dean had ordered as well as one of the three dozen others so they could finish their transaction, Charlie finally stepped outside.

Bobby had waved Gabriel off when he offered to send a druggist around with something stronger for Benny, so the three outsiders found themselves on the street under the rising moon at loose ends.

A nearby tavern announced itself with the scents of ale and sweat and the noise of a fiddle and more voices than an ear could distinguish. As inviting as the place sounded and smelled, they knew they would dampen the luster of the atmosphere by entering in their tailcoats and top hats, so they found three of the usual youths loitering outside the tavern and sent them to fetch three hackneys so they could each find their own private club. Charlie, having reserved a bath for the evening when she departed the club that morning, had a relaxing night to look forward to as she daydreamed about her omega. Neither Gabriel nor Balthazar had thought to do the same, but Balthazar would have no trouble commanding whatever he wanted from his club, and Gabriel frankly didn’t care if he slept with the day’s dust in his hair.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the lady is challenged with a quest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (medicinal & recreational drug use, addiction)

### 

The next day, Gabriel and Charlie met for breakfast at an inn with a dining terrace that overlooked the park. It was a new fad on a fine day for gentlefolk to dine _al fresco_ in the capital, just as one did in Bath in order to see and be seen.

Charlie enjoyed it for the warm spring sun on her face, and Gabriel made eyes at every omega who walked by.

“You’re going to be challenged one day for your flirting, and I, for one, will not feel a bit sorry for you when you die in a duel like a fool,” Charlie harassed him.

Gabriel merely smiled and wagged his eyebrows in delight.

Lord Balthazar had gone riding with another duke from his club that morning, sending a note to Gabriel to let him know they would lunch at the palace afterward, so as not to expect Balthazar to arrive at Glassblowers Street before evening. Gabriel knew that his business-minded brother was already at work to form his political coalition. Besides, Balthazar had Castiel’s letter to deliver and his social niceties to attend to, so the lady and Lord Milton made their way back toward Glassblowers Street on foot, enjoying the fine day, and popping into shops along the way so Charlie could buy flowers and sweetmeats for Patience.

When they came upon an especially aromatic apothecary’s shop, Gabriel stopped. “I recognize that scent,” he said before ducking inside. Just inside the door, a man lay on the floor on a ragged blanket with an elongated oriental pipe at his mouth and his unraveled cravat covering his eyes.

“Is this man injured?” Charlie asked her friend.

Gabriel grimaced. “I doubt it.”

To the shopkeeper who appeared at the scuffed counter, Gabriel asked, “Do you sell it raw, then?”

The shopkeeper, a tiny man with a bald head nodded in the affirmative.

“I’ll take ten grains of it,” Gabriel said, pulling coins from his purse.

When the transaction was complete and he had the little pills tucked into a tin box and hidden in his coat, he seemed to think of one more thing. “What do you have for fever?”

“Willow and aspen,” the bald man lisped through his gums where teeth were missing and gestured with his hands. Gabriel handed over another shilling and waited for the packet of powders.

Meanwhile Charlie hovered near the doorway, noticing that the street they were on was very different from the one where she had made her purchases. A trio of goats bleated in the mud outside, and a woman sat opposite plucking a chicken, letting the dirty, broken feathers float into the air.

Once Gabriel pushed through the door and released himself and Lady Charlie back into the not-so-fresh air, Charlie remarked, “I have read about the opium smokers, but I have never seen one.”

Gabriel shrugged and took his friend’s arm to steer her around a dozen little piglets and their fat sow. “It’s fine if you do not take it raw, I think,” Gabriel said. “I have smoked it dusted over hashish, myself. I understand the attraction, but some men are so lured to it they become like the Lotus Eaters.”

“Then why did you buy it raw?” she rejoined.

“I have not told you much about my time in the army, have I, Charlie?”

“No.”

“I have seen men shot with the massive balls of lead like Bobby Singer pulled from Benny’s leg yesterday. Chances are good that he is quite unwell today.”

“Will feeding him the opium turn him into the man on the shop floor?”

“No,” Gabriel replied firmly. “I shall quarter the pills and only let him use as much as is absolutely necessary. And once he is on the mend, we will take him to Winchester, well away from shops like the one we just visited, where he cannot come across the stuff readily.”

“Oh,” Charlie reacted. “Do you like him, then?” she asked.

“No, Charles. Unlike you, I am not currently thinking with my knot but with my head. You did not see the quality of the materials in Benny’s smithy. Winchester needs a man like him, and we need him hale and hardy.”

Charlie made an O with her mouth and then was distracted when the dingy sign for Glassblowers Street came into view. Gabriel rolled his eyes when his friend’s pace increased, but he followed her without comment.

The Moseleys’ shop was quiet when Gabriel walked in a few steps behind Charlie. Missouri had her oven red hot to prepare the molten glass. Patience, standing by, supposedly to assist with the glassblowing that was almost ready to take place, was smiling insipidly at Charlie, who was smiling just as insipidly at the omega, having apparently forgotten to hand over the flowers in her arms. In brushing past the pair of them, Gabriel grabbed the bouquet from Charlie’s lax fingers and placed it into Patience’s hands. Neither of them really noticed it.

Gabriel chuckled at them, fond of their fondness, but moved toward the back of the house where Benny rested and Bobby read what was apparently the day’s new broadsheet.

“How is the smith?” Gabriel asked, somewhat needlessly, as at that moment the man in question moaned in distress.

Robert Singer stood to greet Lord Milton, and when he was ten degrees into a bow, Gabriel waved him off. “Please don’t. There’s no one here to see you being so proper, Mr. Singer. Ah. I see your eyes are open, Mr. Smith. I’ve got something here you might want.”

Benny, with sweat beading on his brow and his body shivering harshly, made no sign that he heard or understood Gabriel, but when Lord Milton pulled the packet of drugs from his pocket, Singer was there to grab them.

“What fool thing are you doing, you idjit?” he asked gruffly as he uncapped the tin of opium.

Bobby Singer looked askance at Lord Milton with the opium in his hand as if to weigh Gabriel’s intention.

The pause went on long enough that Gabriel got an inkling of his misstep. “You have seen someone deteriorated by this drug, Mister Singer.”

“I have, boy. I have.”

Gabriel took the packet from the older man’s hand. “It is not the drug’s fault, you know, man. In the army I saw men who used it well, used it to heal, or used it to die easy after a ball hit the wrong way, took too much life out of them. It is not the drug that decides how a man uses it.”

Singer nodded and plucked a single grain from the bunch.

“We’ll quarter that,” Gabriel said. “It will do him more good like this than those drops of laudanum you’ve been feeding him.” He pulled out his knife and went to work on the pill. “And he’ll heal better if he can rest better. It looks like the fever has him, now.”

“Tis building up,” Singer confirmed.

With the little ball of raw opium quartered, Gabriel passed it to the older man to administer. For his part, Bobby nodded to Lord Milton before draining the teapot into a cup. No steam rose from it, and Gabriel figured it was tepid. Bobby nudged Benny to take the pill from him and told him to swallow it down with the cold tea. The smith did as he was told and made a face about it. Bobby slapped the man’s brawny shoulder once before resuming his place at the table.

“You ought to butter some of this bread and get it down him, too, or he’ll be heaving the drugs right back up.”

Singer nodded at that order as well and soon placed a buttered roll into Benny’s fist with an order to eat it.

Gabriel took the seat across from Singer’s and picked up the abandoned broadsheet. Glancing over it, he asked, “One of these shops yours?”

“Nah. I got my wagon. Traveling farrier, most times. Do some doctoring and barbering and any odd things that need doing.”

“Oh,” Gabe remembered something Dean had said, “Is it a flop-eared mule that pulls your wagon?”

Bobby smiled, and his face crinkled up amiably. “Dean told you about Rumsfeld?”

Gabriel smiled in return, “He did.”

“That boy always did love dumb animals.”

Gabriel laughed. “That explains why he took up with my brother.”

Bobby looked up then. “Dean with your brother?”

Gabriel affirmed it with a nod but then corrected. “Not Balthazar. My younger brother.”

“He alpha?” Singer asked. “And he’s a Milton?”

“Yes, the poorest one of us, though, I’m afraid,” Gabriel clarified good-naturedly. “Cassie was supposed to go into the Church, but he was such a damn good soldier that the regent wouldn’t let him leave the army until Napoleon was finished. By then, Cassie didn’t think himself worthy of the cloth.”

“Cassie, eh?” Bobby mused. “You saw time in France yourself, weren’t you telling us last night?”

“I was, and I did. Never had quite the stomach for it that Cassie did. That’s Castiel, by the way, a stepbrother, technically.”

Bobby froze half way to standing up to put the kettle to boil again. “Not Castiel, surely?”

“Yes. Oh, do you know him? Or did you know his father? He was one of the Winchesters, once upon a time, I think. My stepmother changed Cassie’s name to Milton when they came to live with us.”

Bobby nodded slowly, lost in thought. “I did know his father. Served with him in the colonies,” Bobby said. “We fought Red Indians and got ate up by bugs together when we were just boys, it seems.”

Gabriel smiled, “Well, that’s astounding really. That could make you Cassie’s de-facto uncle, and to hear Dean tell it, you’re like a father to him, so you can choose which side of the table you want to sit at for the wedding luncheon!” Gabriel laughed at his own joke and didn’t really notice that Bobby wasn’t laughing, too.

Instead, as the aging alpha filled the kettle from the cistern, he mused, almost silently, “Castiel, Thirteenth Duke of Winchester…”

While the water heated, Charlie ran into the room with thick leather gloves on her hands and a very small, round glass globe resting in her palm.

“Look!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it perfect!” She pulled one glove off with her teeth and touched the cooled glass with a tentative fingertip to test it. Finding it no longer hot, Charlie picked it up with her bare fingertips and held it up toward the window to admire its clarity.

Behind her, Patience smiled admiringly, apparently delighted just to see Charlie delighted.

“So, Miss Patience,” Gabriel asked, “have you decided what our Lady Charlie will have to do to earn your favor?”

The omega blushed, “My Charlie,” she hummed with a delighted smile, “only must be her clever, joyful self, for she has already won my favor.”

Gabriel made his face look painfully disappointed. “You’re going much too easy on her, you know.”

Patience only nodded and her smile grew when Charlie, looking smug but very pleased, stole a chaste kiss on her cheek.

“Come, my lady,” Charlie said, a twinkle in her eye. “This buffoon is not wrong. I need a quest to earn my maiden’s love. Give me a quest!”

“Yes! A quest! A quest!” Gabriel cheered, knocking upon the table.

The noise brought Missouri in from the shop with her heavy apron in place but her gloves off.

Patience’s laugh tinkled like the glass bell above the shop’s door, and her grandmother smiled to hear it as she took a seat beside Bobby at the table. Behind them, Benny snored evenly, a sign he was finally sleeping deeply enough not to feel the pain. Old Singer even smiled through his beard and gruff demeanor to see the young lovers so happy.

“I shall,” Patience thought of the mission for Lady Charlie while basking in the glow of Charlie’s full attention, the new bulb forgotten in her fingers. “I shall require you to bring me moonlight at midday, the sound of a summer night’s rain on a cloudless morning, and a kiss, carried on the breath of the wind.”

Charlie's face grew impossibly brighter, and Gabriel whooped and cheered. Even Bobby rapped his knuckles on the table and said, “A truly noble quest indeed.”

Charlie lifted the omega and spun her around, depositing her onto a chair so the alpha could kneel beside her.

“My lady fair, I shall seek out the magic means to bottle moonlight, to capture the sound of summer’s rain, and to send you a kiss on the wings of the wind, and I shall return to you with these gifts. Then, if I have pleased you and if you will have me, we will marry, and I will spend the rest of my life making you smile as brightly as you smile now.”

Patience could barely reply; she felt it sufficient to throw her arms around her alpha’s neck and return the earlier stolen kiss.

From his cot beside the hearth, Benny muttered, “If you need a ring, you’ll have to wait a week or two for me to hammer it.” Everyone laughed and Benny chewed through another bite of the bread, his eyes clearer and his body more relaxed that Gabriel had seen him so far.

When Lord Balthazar showed up that evening, the jovial mood was still intact. He confided in Lord Milton that the Prince Regent had received Castiel’s letter with glee. It would seem that His Royal Highness could not wait to see his fellow colonel of dragoons in harm’s way on his royal behalf, once again. The brothers exchanged a wry look and then got down to business planning the following day’s affairs.

The table in Missouri’s kitchen became a place to create lists. In dividing up the Winchester Estate’s requirements, the three gentlefolk determined they should have to purchase some wagons to get everything back to the castle.

Gabriel would procure them in the morning with Bobby at the wood mill where he was determined to get a few dozen special beams he wanted for the houses they would build. In order to stabilize the drainage for each house’s dirty water, the foundations would require especial deep stability. Gabriel needed at least several examples of the requisite beams to get Winchester started before the beams could later be fashioned on the estate instead of purchased. These, along with sundry other building materials that could not be had easily in the country, required transport.

Balthazar intended that instead of relying on a single well in the town or on the creek that ran into the nearby lake, Winchester would be very modern, and it would have a fount at the top of each street. For this purpose he had that day purchased a new steam engine to pump the water through the town, but additionally, this venture obviously required sundry pipes. The kind of fired clay he wanted might be crafted at the town or one of the neighboring estates—indeed, Gabriel and Lady Charlie had already bought ceramic pipes from a country kiln a couple of hours from Winchester—but for the volume of piping that would be requisite to outfit the entire town, the Miltons wanted to build a kiln onsite and fire the pipes to order. They needed to be thick and sturdy, not the delicate porcelain pipes Gabriel, in his eagerness to solve the town’s water problem, had purchased before. In order to ensure a maker could provide exactly what he needed, he wanted some samples for the builders and perhaps a few pipe makers, to boot. Lord Balthazar intended to drive a wagon of pipes and a few good men back to Winchester.

Lady Charlie delighted in telling Missouri what a fine house and shop the glassblower would have in Winchester town, but the older woman’s eyes betrayed that she was unconvinced. “I barely make enough money here to pay my tax and keep us fed. How will I make any money in the country for a new house, too?”

Before Charlie could shame the woman by promising to pay for her new house, Gabriel jumped in to discuss the new windows that would be required in every new building and half of the old ones.

“After all, he said, you’ll want your granddaughter married in a church with fine windows, will you not?” he said.

Charlie thanked him with her eyes, and a squeeze from Patience’s hand signaled that all would be well.

But then Lady Charlie, buoyed by Missouri’s acceptance, pushed too far. “I shall buy a wagon for you, as well,” she enthused. “To carry all your things to Winchester tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow!” Patience exclaimed at the look on her grandmother’s face.

Missouri interrupted, “Child, we cannot go tomorrow. It will take time to ready our house to sell, and there are many people here whom we cannot abandon so quickly,” she said firmly.

“Besides,” Bobby cut in, “Where would they stay if the houses are still being built?”

“The castle--” Charlie started weakly.

“We cannot stay in the castle, my alpha,” Patience said gently. “That is no place for us.”

“But Dean would welcome you both,” Charlie tried to argue and was interrupted again.

“Dean is not the Duke of Winchester,” Missouri stated sagely.

Everyone at the table grew silent at that pronouncement of truth, more than half of them wondering what Winchester might be like if the other brother had been the one elevated instead of Sam.

Charlie gave up on her suit, for then.

In the end, it was settled that Bobby would join them in the town with Benny and his tools as soon as the smith was well enough to travel. As Benny’s mews had already been bought out from under him because of his failure to pay the tax, he had readily agreed to move to Winchester and blacksmith for the town and castle for a better life than the shitty one he had in the city, prices being what they were. Lord Milton commented that the castle’s forge was in working order because Dean had hammered a few odd pieces in a pinch. Bobby said he was glad to hear Dean hadn’t got too good to lift a hammer, and he mused that there might be room for him and his wagon at Winchester town, as well. Between keeping the castle’s horses shod and doing what barbering and tooth-pulling needs done for the villagers, he would be better off there than wandering incessantly, avoiding the revenue men in the capital. Besides, he thought to himself, Dean and Sam might need him, yet.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which a villain returns and a secret is revealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (attempted non-con (not Cas!) & (brief) graphic violence)

### 

Lady Charlie was the first to arrive back at the castle, having the lightest load in her cart. The phaeton she drove with a pair of matching white horses was, in fact, delightfully fast, sparkling new, and very fine. With a minimal, lightly sprung body atop four extravagantly large wheels, the tiny carriage sported two patented swans’ neck springs. Lady Charlie could not wait for Dean to see her in it, not only because he was a man who appreciated a well made machine, but also because she had his cargo of glass bulbs resting in a box of wood shavings by her feet. Plus, she carried, even more gently, the most wonderful news in her heart that she was eager to share with her best friend. She clicked her tongue at the horses, pleased with her purchase. Her wife would have the best carriage in the town because Lady Charlie would have the best wife in the world.

As luck would have it, Dean was outside when Charlie drove up to the castle. When she was still too far away to hear anything other than his shrill whistle and make out the slow arc of his wave, Lady Charlie could not stop her smile. Soon, she could see that Dean was pretending to play with the puppies that were flocked around the princesses and the duchess on a blanket on the grass, but it was obvious that all of the omegas were actually entranced watching Castiel and Sam fencing shirtless in the late sun.

Dean tore himself away from the spectacle and jogged down the lane to meet his friend, having missed spending days with her working on their devices. When he reached the phaeton, he swung himself up into the seat, panting from the run and barely caught his balance before Charlie snapped her whip, causing the horses to slip into an easy canter for the final distance. Laughing wildly, they rolled to a stop beside the stables.

“For me? You shouldn’t have, Lady Charlie,” Dean laughed, still breathless.

Rolling her eyes at him and handing the reins off to Mick, she replied proudly, “It’s a gift for my omega bride.”

Dean looked up from admiring the shining lacquer on the carriage with wide eyes and an utterly amazed expression. “You, too, little alpha?”

Charlie smacked him for his impertinence at being so familiar with her, but grinned widely and didn’t mean him any harm. They bantered back and forth as they crossed the lawn, passed the half dressed alphas, still sweating in exertion, and slipped into the French window to cut toward the kitchens. Their game completed, Sam stretched his arms as Castiel grabbed his shirt, following his omega with his eyes, happy to see the bright smile on Dean’s face.

The kitchen bustled to life when it learned that Winchester castle’s missing alphas would all be returning this day from the capital. Dean helped Ellen to create a light repast for himself and Lady Charlie, and he helped Kevin carry it upstairs to their workshop where they could eat and talk freely together. He was eager to get the new gossip.

Meanwhile, Castiel bathed and prepared himself to meet with and dine with his brothers when they arrived. He was eager to find out if the Prince Regent had agreed to his request to delay his departure to the West Indies until he could establish his household with his husband. When he had tentatively broached the idea of delaying the wedding awhile, Dean had shut that talk down swiftly and decisively. He hadn’t even gotten round to mentioning his idea was delay it two years, until his return from service, which Dean certainly knew nothing about yet.

The omega was assiduously planning their wedding luncheon and looking forward to telling Lady Charlie his plans. Dean had decided that the ceremony itself would be traditional, in the town’s little chapel, at sunrise with only Sam, Jess, Balthazar, Gabriel, and Charlie to witness for them. After the luncheon, the newly wedded couple would have the use of the castle’s north wing, where a bedchamber was currently being outfitted for their comfort. It would be a simple affair, but it was all either Dean or Castiel wanted.

Dean told his friend of his dream of a few weeks’ honeymoon with Castiel in the north wing, with occasional forays into the orchard, which should bear fruit by then. They’d fill themselves with each other under the trees and then linger in bed together throughout the mornings.

As they nibbled together in the workshop, Dean spent his time telling Lady Charlie all his plans and the desires of his very vivid imagination, which she encouraged delightedly.

“Have you told these plans to Castiel?” Lady Charlie asked over the last of her cheese tart. “Well,” Dean began with a dreamy sigh after he had licked the strawberry cream from his fingers. “I’ve started to tell him. But every time I begin to describe my plans, he gets flustered and that frown descends upon his brow. Before I know it, he has letters to write or some other nonsense that keeps him away from me.”

Charlie laughed loudly, “Oh, you poor, innocent omega! You have no idea what your words do to that alpha. No wonder he was swept up in exercise when I arrived!”

It had crossed Dean’s mind that Castiel spent all his time in exercise, writing, and contemplation when he was not with Dean or accounting sums with Sir Rafael. The omega simply reckoned that, as distracting as the impending wedding was, the colonel had redoubled his efforts to keep his cool head and stoic demeanor.

In reality, Castiel was beside himself with frustration over his desire for Dean. The only way he kept himself from grabbing the omega and ravishing him ten times a day was to exhaust his body with long runs into town and back, long swims in the little lake, and constant romps with the puppies, with the horses, and even with Sam.

Beneath the deep desire for Dean, Castiel knew that the West Indies and the excruciating sea journey to reach them, would challenge him physically as well as mentally, especially coming, as it would, on the heels of abandoning his mate. Castiel labored over what to do about Dean, how to break the news to him. At one moment he was convinced they should absolutely marry as planned, even though he would have to depart soon after, but the next moment, he doubted his ability to survive a long sea journey and tropical war having tasted Dean but once before leaving him for two years.

That conundrum aside, Castiel knew that he was no longer the young man who had brought death to the French emperor’s soldiers. Oh, Castiel did not think himself old, but he had lost the easy energy of a man in his twenties, and he had certainly lost his conviction to fight, especially to fight this particular battle of the Regent’s. The wars against Napoleon had driven Castiel in an especial way: he had wanted nothing more than to see that French despot deposed. It was a philosophical war as much as it was a violent one. But protecting trade ships in the West Indies in order to ensure the investments of the Regent and his cronies? Subjugating men stolen from Africa to slave in the fields of America? Castiel’s stomach tightened at the thought of this mission.

After his sparring with Sam, the colonel had indulged himself with a long and thoughtful bath and a careful shave. Dean was with Charlie, anyway, so he was not missing out on precious time with his mate. In fact, after an hour at his ablutions, Castiel looked out his window whilst tying his cravat to see Dean sprawled on the grassy lawn watching the sunset with Lady Charlie and the puppies.

Castiel’s stomach tightened as he saw that beautiful man smile with his friend. Castiel could not avoid the mission, for it was his only road to Dean, and Dean was his blood, his heartbeat, and his soul. As long as he had Dean, he would find the right path in life, no matter the despicable Prince Regent’s plans.

His resolve only settled more firmly in his bones when he saw Dean pointing up the road at a looming cloud of dust. From his upper window, Castiel could see that Gabriel and Balthazar had finally arrived in their laden wagons, and soon the party could sit to dine together.

Castiel sighed knowing that very shortly he would finally hear what news his brothers had from the Regent.

Dinner, as it turned out, was much more lively than Castiel had expected. Gabriel and Balthazar, with some furious interjections from Charlie, informed the Duke of Winchester and his household of the impending fate of Glassblowers Street and its inhabitants.

At crisis points amidst the political discussion about tax policies and the Regent’s careless greed, Dean steered the conversation to lighter matters in order to keep the princesses from angrily censoring political talk by goading Charlie to describe her meeting with Missouri and Patience. He was concerned for his friend Benny-- and to some degree that got Castiel’s attention away from the Prince Regent’s villainy. Castiel scrutinized his fiancé’s face and wondered if there was some history between Dean and the alpha blacksmith whom Gabriel and Balthazar described as “big, burly, and blue-eyed.”

After dinner, Castiel was loose-limbed and somewhat drowsy with wine, so Dean helped Castiel up the stairs and proceeded to unfasten his buttons, helping his alpha undress for bed, pressing kisses into his skin, and receiving admonishments for his trouble.

“Dean,” Castiel groaned as he pulled at his own hair to keep his hands from mauling his omega. “Do not tempt me tonight.”

Dean chuckled. “Alpha you can barely open your eyes. I hardly think you have the energy to ravish me.”

To prove the omega wrong, Castiel’s impossibly strong arms wound round Dean and pulled their bodies flush as the alpha’s mouth found what it desired and began to devour his omega in passionate open-mouthed kisses.

Soon, Dean was panting and pulling at Castiel’s hair as the alpha dug his fingers into the globes of Dean’s ass and pressed their groins together. A low rhythmic alpha growl vibrated both their chests, reverberating through Dean and lighting his every molecule aflame.

A soaking sweat erupted over Dean’s flesh, and the omega moaned with wanton desire, further igniting the alpha’s need. Thus lost in a double bond of one another’s swirling desire, neither of them noticed the footsteps, but Kevin’s uncomfortable cough from the corridor broke through the tangible lust.

When Colonel Milton looked over Dean’s shoulder at the nervous looking omega footman, the alpha growled louder, possessively.

“ _Err_ ,” Kevin coughed again, “her highness sent me to find out if Mr. Winchester will be joining her for the game of whist, as he promised.”

Dean pushed at Castiel’s shoulders and looked at Kevin with dark-blown eyes and an air of utter disorientation.

After a few moments of blinking stupidly, Dean responded, “Whist? I will. Yes. Whist.” He pushed himself free of Castiel’s searing embrace and ran a hand through his mussed and sweaty hair.

Kevin bowed and all but ran from the scene.

Dean licked his lips and met Castiel’s eyes again. “I have learned my lesson,” he said, “not to tempt you.” With one arm fully extended to keep some distance between them, Dean placed his palm against Castiel’s chest and pushed him backward toward his room.

Castiel grabbed Dean’s wrist and pulled him back in for another kiss. “You always tempt me, omega.”

Dean blushed, “Go to sleep, alpha. I will see you in the morning.”

Castiel retreated behind his bedroom door and stood with his eyes closed a moment before proceeding to undress.

Stopping during the process of removing his shirt to lift it to his face and breathe in Dean’s lingering, intoxicating scent, Castiel suddenly remembered the Prince Regent and the missive Balthazar had brought from the palace. Pulling the sealed note from his jacket pocket, Castiel read the formal script informing him that the request to delay his period of service had been denied. Unsurprised, but unhappy nonetheless, Castiel threw the letter against the wall, but the lightweight paper was an ineffectual vent of his spleen, so then he threw himself onto his bed for good measure.

That night, Castiel did not sleep well, left with the onerous task of thinking out how to break the news to Dean. All of this personal distress, along with the simmering anger he felt at the news about the fates of the people of Glassblowers Street, made him quiet and withdrawn at breakfast the next morning, despite the looks from Dean that shook him to the core and the bright smiles on the omega’s beautiful face that took Castiel’s breath. The colonel did not want to be the one to dampen Dean’s joy over his friend Lady Charlie’s new love or to darken his smiles by reminding him about the fates of his old friends’ homes and businesses, and he certainly did not want to explode Dean’s heart by telling him they would have to wait two years to marry, so he attempted to hide his mood. The squeeze of Dean’s fingers under the table betrayed the truth that Dean knew Castiel was troubled, anyway. Somehow Dean always knew Castiel’s every thought and mood. So the alpha retreated into his teacup and did his best to put everything out of his mind until later.

Throughout the following days, Dean and Charlie were inseparable as they worked on the electric lights. Dean missed Castiel, as he had ridden to the capital on some personal business and had been gone a few days, but the pining omega kept himself busy with his work and tried not to let his wistful mood bring Charlie down. It was a fine day just after Easter when Dean and Charlie were in her workshop together that Castiel returned from his business. Dean went to the alpha immediately, but Castiel excused himself from his omega saying he had important letters to write and needed to be undisturbed, so Dean buried his disappointment behind a brave smile and carried on as though the alpha were still away.

Distracted as he was that day with Castiel’s coldness, Dean concentrated that much more on the process of preparing the new tiny light globes with platinum filaments and a wash of spirits. Dean hammered the filaments for each bulb, and together he and Charlie prepared the spirits, assembled the bulbs, and sealed them tightly, before moving on with larger versions for the larger mechanisms to fit the three dozen large bulbs Missouri had made.

Ever fastidiously picky about the quality of his creations, Dean was delighted with the clarity that the blue burn off of spirits left inside the glass globes. He began to wonder if a piston plunger would be able to draw the air out of the glass instead of using a burn that could potentially damage the platinum.

“Don’t be so fussy, Dean,” Charlie scolded. “You have already eliminated the carbon cloud I was originally getting in my bulbs. This is the brightest light I could have hoped for.” Even so, Charlie was delighted with the idea of testing a piston plunger but bemoaned the absence of anyone to make one for them in Winchester. She hoped that Benny would be well enough soon to travel and take his hammer back up in work for the town. The most recent letter received from Bobby Singer had indicated that the state of things in Glassblowers Street was taking on a dangerous edge, with more soldiers arriving daily to enforce eviction notices from new landlords.

It was late that night, when Dean had just managed to assemble his new clockwork mechanism for a smaller version of the electric lamp with a coil spring, and Charlie had just finished the electrical wiring mechanism for it when Dean, sick of the yellow light from the gas lamps, lit the dying end of a candle in his bedroom in order to continue tinkering with the contraption. He had just hammered the tiny nails into the casing for his handheld lamp when he heard a noise in the garden that caught his attention. With his windows open on the fine, late spring night, Dean heard the puppies whine and then squeak as if frightened or injured.

Fearing that a fox or a badger had tried to take one of the little dogs for a feast, Dean pulled on his trousers and then took his new hand torch to investigate. Immediately ducking away from the stairway upon glimpsing a movement in the corridor, Dean’s heart hammered against his ribs. He peeked around the bannister, and what he saw made his blood turn cold. Under the gaslight at the head of the corridor, that scoundrel Brady lurked, his unmistakable form hovering about Castiel’s door.

Dean ducked back inside his own doorway to watch the interloper’s shadow make a hand motion at about hip-height. From the turning of the shadow’s wrist and the sound of a mechanical click, Dean knew that Brady had turned a key in Castiel’s lock. Was he letting him into Castiel’s room?

A reflected beam of soft light cut through the shadow as it turned, and Dean deduced that it was from a blade glinting in the villain’s other hand as the shadow reached up to the lamp and turned the gas off, plunging the corridor in darkness. Brady then turned toward Dean’s hiding spot. _Not going into Castiel’s room, then._

Dean made his move quickly, noiselessly skittering across the hall to the back staircase. He descended a few steps, enough that only his eyes peered above the top step. His own breathing sounded loud alongside the thumping of his heart in his ears when Brady crept closer. Dean intended to wait for him to pass by the staircase, and then he would follow the fiend to his destination.

Dean’s mind was racing, but his worry was for Sam. Had Brady come back to rob him? To murder him? Dean suspected the man was heading toward Sam’s room to stab him in his sleep because Sam had circulated Mr. Brady’s name with the authorities. The Duke of Winchester had even gone so far as to denounce Brady to Jessica’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who had sent him to guard Sam and Jess in the first place. As his footsteps sounded closer, Dean waited breathlessly and wondered why Brady had returned here. What stood he to gain from eliminating Sam when the word was already out that he was a villain? Vengeance would not restore his name.

When Brady stopped at Dean’s door, the omega held his breath. He watched the man insert the key into the lock. Why would he lock Dean in? But no! He turned the key and then the knob. He entered the room!

Cold dread washed through Dean’s bones as he realized the truth. Brady was not going for Sam. He was going for Dean. This was not a story of vengeance but one of lust. Dean heard a whispered curse fall from his doorway and knew that Brady had discovered his absence. Dean willed his frozen limbs into action and fled silently down the staircase. His head swam in panic as he tried to think of where to go and what to do. If only he had fled up the stairs instead of down! He could have run to Ellen or… No. What good would another omega be? He should run for Ketch in his little cottage by the stables.

Thus determined, Dean descended all the way to the kitchens and fumbled with the back door. It was locked. _Damn_. The house was shut tight at night ever since some passer-by had stopped off to report that footpads had been working in the area.

Now that he was at the ground floor of the house, he was utterly alone and veritably trapped. There was no way to get up to rouse Gabriel or Sam for help. There was no way to alert Castiel or Balthazar!

“Omega!”

The singsong, smarmy voice came at Dean through the darkness. Brady had nearly caught up to him.

Dean crept past the great hearth and racked his brain for a memory that might conjure up a hidden doorway or cupboard to hide in. He thought of his times spent with Ellen in here, and—

“You can't hide from me forever, little omega. I smell you!”

Dean gave up his creeping and dashed flat-out for the pantries. Sure enough, the cellar staircase lay around a corner, hidden in plain sight. Dean was thankful for his bare feet as he sprinted down the stairs, if not soundlessly, at least quietly. He lit on the cold cellar floor and turned in a circle to find an escape. He knew there was a door between the garden and the root cellar. He heard boots clomping down the staircase behind him, and without wasting any more time, Dean tried the first door to hand. It was the laundry room!

The whitewashed walls and large window let moonlight brighten his path, and Dean changed tack to take the narrow staircase-cum-laundry chute that the housemaids used to carry linens throughout the castle.

After two flights of stairs, he found himself in an unfamiliar corridor and let himself in the first door he encountered, relieved instantly at the alpha scent he encountered. It was pitch black in the room, the curtains drawn against the moonlight, so Dean called out, “Ho there, alpha!”

He heard a muffled noise and stepped closer to it but instantly tripped over a pair of boots.

“Alpha!”

“Who’s there?” It was Charlie’s voice.

“Charlie! It’s Brady! He’s after me.” Dean righted himself and took the torch from his pocket and wound one gear and pressed the button to release a few seconds of light and reveal himself.

He wished he hadn’t.

Not only did his eyes discover that Charlie was unclothed in her bed, but also that she was not alone.

“Patience?” he choked out, covering his eyes until his thumb found the button on the torch that killed the circuit for the mechanism.

“Get ahold of yourself, Winchester,” Charlie scolded, noisily pulling on some clothing.

Dean was still fumbling for a rejoinder when he heard Brady’s voice directly outside the room.

“Come out, little omega. I saw your light.” The doorknob turned.

“Dean,” Charlie whispered. “Wind that thing up and punch the button when I say. And stand away from the door.”

Dean followed each instruction to the letter, pressing himself against the nearest wall and holding the torch aloft, his thumb at the ready on the button.

The door opened, and at the same moment, the mechanism of a pistol clicked.

“I know you’re here, omega. I can smell you and the alpha.” Brady said. “Does Castiel know you’re whoring yourself around the castle? I believe it’s my turn to feel you on my knot.”

“Now, Dean!”

The light came forth, and one second later the deafening explosion of a shot thundered through the room. Dean dropped his torch and the bulb shattered, extinguishing the light. Mere moments later, someone knelt in front of Dean where he was crouched on the floor with his eyes shut and his ears covered. He opened his eyes to see Charlie in her dressing gown touching his knee to rouse him while beyond her someone lit a candle. Dean’s ears rang violently, and he could barely see in the dimness of a single flame.

As his eyes adjusted, Dean looked around the room and let his hands fall from his ears; by then several people crowded around the doorway. He scanned the faces for Castiel’s and was disappointed before he remembered that the alpha was trapped in his bedroom.

“Cas,” Dean murmured incoherently as he tried to lurch into the hallway toward his alpha’s room. He merely ran into the doorframe, dizzy and unsteady from the excitement and disoriented from the deafening bang.

Charlie reached out to shore him up, but then she was pushed aside when Dean’s own alpha’s arms surrounded him.

Dean fell against Castiel and inhaled deeply, allowing himself the comfort of his true mate’s scent.

“Dean, Dean,” Castiel muttered, as he let his hands roam, assuring himself that his omega was whole.

“What the hell happened?” Sam’s voice snapped Dean’s eyes open, and he saw his brother staring down at them with his shrubby sideburns disheveled. Dean followed Sam’s gaze toward the floor and felt sickened to see Brady’s brains splattered around. The blood seeped out in a wide pool, extending to the place where Dean and Castiel stood. Dean noticed the warm wetness under his bare feet and felt his stomach twist in disgust.

“Look at that,” Gabriel sneered. “Charlie got a snake with only one shot.”


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the alpha is ready to talk--until some old friends arrive

### 

Ever since Lady Charlie had been forced to reveal that she had raced to the city in the phaeton to whisk Patience back to the castle after the last letter from Bobby Singer detailed the impending violence, Patience had stayed with her at the castle. The omega insisted upon filling her free time productively, splitting her days between the lakeside where she helped Chuck care for the little children and the town of Winchester, proper, where she talked to the builders about what kind of oven the glass shop required, what kinds of families the houses would hold.

The building for the glassblower’s shop would be right on the high street with a wide front door and a shallow garden in the back. Patience could not be more thrilled to know that Missouri would be comfortable and happy for the rest of her days, and the young woman devoted what time she could to digging rows to plant some summer vegetables to welcome her grandmother when she arrived from the city.

When Bobby, Benny, and Missouri eventually made it to Winchester, the glass shop was finished, aside from glass for its windows and paint for its door, and the first three imports from Glassblowers Street were delighted. Roomier than the shop she had abandoned in the capital, Missouri was quick to invite her two fellow travelers to remain under her roof until their own homes could be completed. Benny, walking with the help of a stick, vowed to earn his keep during his convalescence by manning the bellows for Missouri as she got down to the business of creating windows for the town. Offering his own skills up to the task, Bobby suggested that as the other pair created the glass panes, he could fit them together in their lead frames to help complete the windows in a timely manner. Gabriel was so thrilled to have the work under way that he offered to pay each of them a shilling a day!

The day they arrived in town, however, was a Saturday, so they had time to unload all of Missouri’s household items from their wagon. Then they spent all of Sunday sitting and visiting, Missouri marveling at the tiny sprouts shooting up in elegant rows from the fine black dirt behind her shop.

That Sunday, Dean asked Ellen to prepare a cold lunch for him to take into the town, and Castiel loaded one of the wagons with the food and drinks, as well as the people who wanted to go along. He drove Dean, Ellen, Gabriel, Balthazar, the stable boys, Kevin, Claire, and two of the puppies into town. Charlie and Patience had taken their phaeton in earlier that day to help Missouri arrange her new home.

Bobby had brought along all of the past month’s broadsheets from the city, which Balthazar, Gabriel, Castiel, and Dean read and discussed throughout the sunny afternoon. When the politics made Dean anxious, he busied himself with the puppies, old enough to start learning to obey commands. He had brought them to keep Benny and Missouri company, but also to watch out for them. Considering that much of the town was still vacant, they had no neighbors to watch their backs, and Dean was still shaken by the events of Brady’s prowling and the vague murmurings of footpads in the area. The puppies weren’t good for much other than barking and eating scraps, but that would be better than nothing.

Bobby asked after Sam, and Dean looked away, out of things to say for his brother.

“The duke had some correspondence and business matters to occupy his time today,” Castiel interjected. “He keeps himself very busy.”

Bobby merely grumbled without directly responding.

Wanting to dispel the tension, Castiel brought up the wedding, feeling like an absolute imposter for doing so, but Dean’s brilliant smile brought everyone to life, and Castiel could not feel guilty about putting it on the omega’s face.

Normally not one to comply with typical omega stereotypes, Dean was helpless against the wedding fever.

“We will marry on the solstice," Dean said, with a wink to Missouri.

Castiel noticed the look and complained, "He still hasn't disclosed to me the significance of the day he has chosen, but it seems that you, Madam, know more than I."

"Oh, indeed I do," Missouri smiled. "I once made a chandelier for a wedding, and every day I was blowing the baubles for it, little Dean came into my shop to watch. He loved the small pieces that danced in the sunlight.

"So I talked to him while I worked and told him of all the best days of the year to marry.

"He came each day to help hang the baubles on the wrought iron frame with his gentle little fingers, and I told him that if he were to marry at the winter solstice, his life would be blessed with warmth.

"If he were to wed at the equinox of springtime, his life would be blessed with many, many children.

"If he were to wed at the autumn equinox, he and his mate would grow very, very old together.

"And if he were to marry at the summer solstice, his mate would honor him with a family, a home, and more love than they both could hold."

That little boy looked me in the eye and said, "Missouri, I will marry my true mate at the summer solstice, and I will honor _him_ with all those things."

The party laughed and "awwed" and Dean's face turned red, but his smile was pure. Castiel felt his vision cloud but he hid his face in Dean's neck until it passed, happy to have his true mate in his arms and kind friends by his side. How was he ever going to tell Dean it would not be this summer but two years hence that they would be wed?

“Well then,” Charlie said as though reading Castiel’s mind and daring him to follow through, “it is time you post the banns.”

“And what about you, Lady Celeste,” Gabriel teased, and her true name caused her to scowl, “When are you going to make an honest woman of Miss Patience?”

Missouri pretended to find something very interesting with the lace on her fan as she whipped up a breeze for her face, but Charlie did not back down nor release her omega’s hand. “I have a quest,” she said. “We will wed as soon as I complete my quest.”

The small party continued with talks of weddings and quests and true love, and when the day drew toward its close, the colonel asked Gabriel to drive the wagon back to the castle so he and Dean could stroll past the chapel to speak to the vicar. Dean wanted to post the banns and then enjoy the sunset together on the walk home. Castiel, on the other hand, had things to say to Dean, and he had delayed them long enough.

The vicar, as usual, was not in, which was a slight relief to Castiel. To appease Dean, however, he left a note at the vicarage about posting their marriage banns. Continuing their leisurely stroll home hand in hand, the pair paused by the little lake where they had stopped on their first walk together. Castiel tugged at Dean’s hand and pulled the pair of them down into the trampled grass where, evidently, the herd of horses had been exercised earlier in the day.

“There are some things we should discuss, Dean.”

 _Finally_ , Dean thought. He shifted his body to face the alpha entirely, so instead of looking at the lake, he stared into those blue eyes he loved.

Castiel took a deep breath, looked up into Dean’s eyes and then studied the grass as if he had never seen its like before.

“I want you to know, dearest, that no matter your answer me, I want you and I love you.”

Dean felt a cold sweat erupt upon his palms.

“Before I ask you, though, I must confess my indiscretions.” He cleared his throat and fidgeted, very much unlike the alpha Dean knew and loved. “As a young soldier,” he began before glancing up and back down again, “there are certain traditions—Or, I don’t mean that. I mean I am a weak man, Dean.”

“You’ve had lovers,” Dean interrupted.

Castiel’s eyes widened enough to show the whites all around the deep blue iris. His mouth fell into an O and he appeared to stop breathing.

“It is expected, alpha. I’m not naive.”

“Dean,” Castiel reached out for his mate’s hands and held them in his own. “Please understand, though. I have not had _lovers_. Never someone I loved. I swear to you. I have never loved anyone but you.”

Dean nodded, suddenly unable to speak, and Castiel waited on him. Flocks of sparrows that nested in the cattails on the lake flew in like clouds of swarming bees to light upon their tiny beds for the night. The din of chirping distracted the men momentarily and afforded Dean a chance to think. He knew he was being asked a question, but he was uncertain-- _Oh_.

“I have not. If that is what you wanted to know. I--” Dean picked at the weeds under his right thigh. “I have--” Dean pulled the leaves from the dandelion, “kissed… someone. Two. I have kissed two people. Omegas. But--” Dean stopped, blushing to his roots. “But it was not recent. I’ve always had Sam to think of. To protect him from rumors, I’ve never--”

Castiel reached out for Dean’s hands, but the omega took up a frenzied fixation on weeding, yanking stems from the grass and tossing the clumps of verdure, dirt and all, into the lake water to create ripples on its surface, sending the little birds up in swirls from their roosts to fly up, circle, and relight upon the cattails. Castiel stared into his mate’s shining eyes and simply murmured, “I love you, Dean. I would not have loved you less if--” He scratched at his hair. “If you were like me.”

They sat in silence as the birds settled down and the frogs began to sing, and Castiel decided that he should get on with the other painful things he needed to say. But before he could blurt out about the West Indies, he lost his nerve, and like a coward he went down a different track.

“Dean, I have neglected you of late.”

Dean looked over from watching the orange light of the fading sun dance in fiery rings on the water’s surface. His alpha’s blue eyes reflected the yellow clouds from the sky.

“I have had a great deal of business to see-to recently,” he said.

Dean nodded, head tilting curiously to the side, a move he had newly picked up from his alpha.

Castiel coughed and looked away under the scrutiny of Dean’s earnest gaze. “When my father died, he left sundry investments to me as my inheritance. All told, they do not measure up to much any more, as his business dealings were mostly plundered by the crown. But with that income and my wages from managing the Winchester Estate, I have just under a thousand pounds a year, which, though not very much, is sufficient for us to establish a modest household, especially here, out of the city.”

Dean’s eyes grew wide, unable to fathom such an amount of money. Having survived his entire life on pennies scraped together in dire circumstances, factoring a living in pounds, let alone in hundreds of pounds, a _thousand_ pounds made him feel very rich, indeed. His mouth went dry.

Mistaking Dean’s wide eyes for fear, Castiel was quick to offer evidence that a thousand would be enough for them to live on, “I know it is nothing compared to what you have as a member of your brother’s household, but--”

“What do you mean as a member of Sam’s household? I have nothing at all.”

Castiel stopped, “But surely you have an allowance,” Castiel insisted. “Charlie said you had given her money for some parts when she went to the city.”

Dean shook his head. “No. I had a piece of scrap silver. There was a broken spoon, and Sam let me have it to make-- well, to make something out of, and I ended up selling the bowl for coin and keeping the handle for my-- project.”

Castiel’s brow furrowed, “But you always give the children pennies,” he insisted.

“I used to, yes. But I ran out of pennies from selling my little toys long ago, alpha.”

“So Sam has not given you an allowance?”

“No? Should he?”

“Yes,” Castiel ground out. “You are a grown man. It is outrageous that you are expected to contribute to the household in the way that you do and then earn nothing for it!” Castiel seemed truly outraged.

“Calm down, alpha,” Dean soothed. “Sam’s new at this. It doesn’t matter anyway. The solstice is soon, and we will be married, and I will not be part of Sam’s household, and if you give me an allowance of a shilling a week, I will be so rich I won’t know what to do with myself,” he smiled.

At that, the alpha leaned forward and kissed the omega soundly on his mouth. Dean smiled, relaxing for the first time since they planted themselves by the lake, and Castiel took a deep breath.

“I allowed myself to be distracted,” the colonel said, rising to his feet. It was growing dark, and he wanted to get his omega home. “Forgive me.”

“Don’t mention it,” Dean winked.

Castiel offered Dean his hand, and pulled him to his feet. After securing that same hand upon his arm, the couple began strolling slowly back toward the castle.

“I have been consolidating my investments lately, Dean. Instead of pieces of various companies here and there, I have sold off much of the international trade, which I find not only risky but also unsavory, and put the money into domestic affairs, instead.”

“Like what?”

“I am very impressed,” he said, “with the railway scheme.”

“Railway?”

“Yes. How would you like to be able to travel from Winchester to the capital in an hour or two?” the alpha asked with his eyes wide and fixed earnestly on Dean.

“How is that even possible?”

Castiel smiled and spent the next half-mile regaling Dean with tales of a track he saw being built on one of his days away for business, and Dean was so dazzled by the idea that their conversations swirled around the mechanical implications of such a technology for the rest of the journey.

That night, Castiel felt a twinge of guilt for allowing himself to forget the rest of the business he needed to discuss with his fiancé, but with the warm feeling of Dean’s love deep in his soul, he slept peacefully knowing he would tell his omega about the West Indies tomorrow.

Very soon thereafter, Lord Crowley paid Winchester castle a visit.

“I have heard,” said the lord as he disembarked from his shiny black phaeton with a glance toward Lady Charlie’s obviously newer and sleeker white one parked beside the stables, “that Winchester Town is set to be the most modern village in our county.”

Sam, happy to talk up his tenants, as if he had been the one to personally select each craftsman to take up residence in the new houses, replied, “Without a doubt, Lord Crowley. Without a doubt. Have you come to look in on the construction?”

“When my breakfast was disturbed by my cook’s inability to shut up about the crystal clear windows and elegant window latches being fashioned by your people, I decided I must see them,” he proclaimed. The stout little man, who smelled like an alpha under a miasma of French cologne, tapped his walking stick against the mechanism in Dean’s hand and demanded, “What is this?”

Dean looked at his own hand, having forgotten what he was working on, and gave the thing a shake. The seeds he had painstakingly pushed through a hole in one of Balthazar’s ceramic pipes did not quite have the sound of summer rain, but he and Lady Charlie were getting closer with their inventions to bottle moonlight, capture the sound of summer rain, and deliver a kiss on the wind. Rattling the pipe obnoxiously he said, “It is a tube of angry bees,” before shoving it toward Lord Crowley’s face and causing the man to flinch. Everyone laughed, but Dean could see he had made Sam uncomfortable and Crowley peeved with his little joke, so he shuffled himself further back in the group of people who had come outside when Crowley’s carriage had been spotted on the drive.

Sam, being neighborly or dukely or something, took Crowley into the town to see the windows that Bobby, Benny, Missouri, and Patience were creating. Dean did not join the group ambling along the lane, preferring to stay behind and work. He knew Crowley would be impressed, but if the lord expected the people of Winchester to make anything to his order for Crowley Corner, he would have to wait a while for it.

Dean’s face fell when he saw Castiel following the group and then joining the front of the pack with Sam and the visitor. He had hoped to spend some time alone with Castiel since Dean had guessed that his alpha wanted to talk to him about something more than they had discussed on their recent evening walk.

It was a few days later, a mere week from the presumed wedding day, when Ketch approached Dean in his workshop. “Mr. Winchester, Colonel Milton requests your audience in his offices at your soonest convenience.”

Dean looked up, wide-eyed, from his work. “In his offices?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dean blinked. “And he sent you?”

“Evidently, Mr. Winchester,” Ketch replied, opening his hands and splaying his fingers in demonstration of his own solid presence.

“Thank you, Ketch.” Dean wrapped a cloth around the silver pieces he had been working on and stood from his bench. As he traversed the corridors, he rubbed at the grease on his fingers with his handkerchief and then ran a hand through his hair self-consciously.

“Dean,” Castiel murmured, rising from his desk to walk around it and take his omega’s hand to kiss it fondly. “I haven’t seen you today,” the alpha stated.

“I haven’t seen much of you in weeks, alpha.”

Castiel had the good grace to wince at that little stab.

“I have been very busy with--”

“Business. Yes, I know.”

“Dean, please sit down, and allow me to explain.”

Dean nodded and took the seat offered to him. “You owe me no explanations, alpha,” he remarked, but the words were hollow as in truth he was ready to finally hear about whatever his alpha had been up to.

“As I began to tell you earlier, my income, though small, should be sufficient to maintain a family of modest means, perhaps to keep a horse, if you like, two servants, maybe.” He coughed to give himself time to organize his thoughts before he could ramble off trajectory further.

“But most of the investments my father left me were in risky ventures, and there have been times when I have lost as much as I made in a year. A ship lost at sea can return no gain.”

Dean nodded, understanding that Castiel spoke in precise patterns and knowing that the alpha would not be rushed.

“Like I said before, I have been breaking various contracts of a risky or unsavory nature in order to invest in a railway. Now, while this, too carries with it a fair bit of risk, I have weighed them to be worth the opportunity they offer in turn. The railway was my choice because it is domestic. You will never have to wait for money to come from abroad. And it is a venture of a technological nature, to which you have already shown interest and an impressive understanding of the potentialities.”

Dean nodded along. He would allow the colonel to be long winded, because he could tell the alpha was still working up to something.

“Additionally, Lord Crowley has a venture for his tenants in which they give him a list of goods they require on a weekly basis. He posts a letter every week to his shop in the capital. His shop workers fill the orders and send the goods on the mail coach to Crowley Corner. When the good are distributed, the workers pay Crowley for the goods.”

“That’s very fascinating, but what has that to do with us, my love?” Dean enjoyed watching his alpha’s animated face, but he was anxious not to digress again.

Castiel’s face transformed itself with the hint of a smile around the corners of his eyes at hearing Dean’s endearment.

“I have arranged with Lord Crowley to expand his system to include the people of Winchester, as well. And, eventually, by using the railway to deliver the goods, instead of the mail coach, once the tracks are established in our county, we will have such an efficient system that we are sure to see a steady and healthy income from it.”

Dean blinked. “Alright, you must know that I support you, whatever you want to do with your money,” he said. “But this sounds speculative and distantly futuristic.”

Castiel deflated a little at Dean’s lack of enthusiasm, but he powered on. “You’re right, but I have faith that even in the short term, although less profitable than this scheme might be when the railway comes through, it will still make enough at present to keep you well maintained.”

“Us,” Dean corrected.

Castiel blinked. “Of course. To keep us well maintained.”

Dean nodded, and Castiel was momentarily lost in his mate’s eyes. When Dean began to lean in toward his alpha for a kiss, the colonel coughed and continued. “I have here the contracts for these ventures, which I need you to sign, Dean.”

“Me?”

Castiel looked up from the papers to meet his mate’s eyes. “Yes. You. I have drawn them up in your name. Should anything happen to me—I—” Castiel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I simply want the peace of mind of knowing I have done everything I could to look out for your future, my love.”

In turning the term of endearment back upon Dean, he hoped to not only express his earnest devotion but also to forestall other questions until this element was settled.

Dean stepped forward and took up Castiel’s carefully trimmed pen. Once the omega had made his mark in all the places the alpha indicated, Colonel Milton wrapped his arms around his fiancé and sighed into his neck. The two stood wrapped together for a few moments, until a clamoring of hoof beats drew their attention to the window.

“Dragoons?” Dean wondered at seeing two redcoats reining in the yard.

Frowning into the scene below, Castiel squeezed Dean’s hand. “Dean, I have one more thing to tell you.”

“Haloo the house!!” one of the soldiers called.

“Come on,” Dean said. “Sammy and Jess are out riding, and Charlie’s in her workshop, and everyone else is in town.”

Castiel felt his heart plummet into his boots as Dean rushed out the door to go down to the yard to greet the newcomers and relieve Mick from having to deal with anything other than their horses.

“Well, hello, beautiful!” the taller soldier called upon seeing Dean.

Dean chose to ignore the leer and greeted them as Sam would do. “Welcome to Winchester. Can I offer you refreshment? It appears as though your horses are helping themselves,” he gestured to the destriers that were sucking noisily at the trough while Mick patiently held their reins.

“Colonel,” both men said in unison, snapping to attention and losing the joviality of their expressions.

Dean looked over his shoulder at Castiel, amused at the reaction his presence commanded in the two dragoons. Unlike Dean's, Castiel's face showed not a hint of amusement. His eyes were hard and his jaw was set.

“Bartholomew, Ion. I was not expecting you.”

“No, sir. Young George sent us to ensu--”

Castiel cut him off by curtly stating, “You will address his royal majesty, the Prince Regent, properly in my presence, Captain,” to which the soldier’s back grew somehow stiffer at attention. Castiel continued, all of his attention apparently on Dean and none of it on the soldiers as he said, “Dean Winchester, may I present to you Captains Bartholomew and Ion of the sixteenth. Captains, my fiancé, Dean Winchester.”

The two soldiers bowed low and politely upon their introduction, and somewhat bemused at Castiel’s demeanor, Dean did the same.

“Oh,” the one called Captain Ion said, remembering something and striding back to his horse. “I’ve brought your coat,” he said rummaging in his pack. “Lighter weight than what we wore in France, and the newest style. I thought you had written your measurements wrong in your letter but I see,” he said gesturing to Castiel with a bundle wrapped in brown paper, “that your shoulders really are broader, now.”

Dean watched Castiel take the bundle stiffly. “Is it your officer’s coat?” he asked his husband-to-be. “Are you wearing your uniform for the wedding?” Dean had envisioned Castiel at their wedding in his blue tailcoat, but if his alpha wanted to wear red, well, the colonel would surely be dashing in his uniform.

Castiel merely squeezed Dean’s hand and suggested the soldiers follow them inside for the refreshment they had been offered.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the omega loses his temper and refuses to accept a delay to his plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (explicit content, mating)

### 

Castiel disappeared into his office with his old friends, the dragoons, and Dean returned to his workshop to finish the wedding gift he was making for Castiel. Dean was no silversmith, but he had his little crucible and a great deal of patience and determination. Over the years, both Bobby and Benny had taught him a thing or two about metal work, and it had served him well in fashioning his little clockwork creations. This gift was simple in its mechanism but delicate in its design; he hoped Castiel would like it.

At dinner that evening, the soldiers created a somewhat muted atmosphere, for some reason. There was evidently something that half of the party was unaware of that the other half of the party wanted to keep from them. Sam and Dean exchanged many puzzled looks, but Sam, ever the sparkling host, kept the table lively and the guests smiling despite the awkward elephant in the room.

The next morning when Dean awoke to the bright sun of late spring, it was to find Castiel, Bartholomew, Gabriel, and Ion sparring with swords in the yard. Castiel’s sleeves were rolled up and his cravat removed, and Dean spent some time at his window admiring the glisten of perspiration on his alpha’s strong forearms and throat. When Captain Ion caught sight of him in the window, he pointed Dean out to Castiel, and the alpha spared a wink for Dean, who laughed and waved before carrying on with pulling on his boots to begin his day. When he thought about it, Dean couldn’t believe his luck that he would be married to that man in four days.

That evening, after an informal dinner of cold meats and vegetable cakes, Castiel’s face wore a strange expression when he offered his arm to Dean for a stroll through the gloaming. It had been a clear, hot June day, and the unploughed fields bloomed in wildflowers as far as they eye could see.

The betrothed walked arm in arm into the southern pasture where the horses still lingered, unhurried about trekking back to the stables for the night.

Castiel remained silent for some way along the lane, so Dean spoke to try to draw his alpha out of his shell. “Your friends are staying for the wedding, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“I heard Captain Ion say something about sending the Prince Regent proof we were married?”

Castiel said nothing for a few steps. Frogs sang in the near distance while the breeze rustled the leaves; eventually the alpha’s voice was a quiet extension of those sounds when he finally spoke. “I made an oath to the Regent in France. Because of my father’s so-called crimes against old King George, when my mother died the Prince, a fellow colonel of dragoons, as you know, asked a pledge of me, in exchange for allowing me some of the bequests that were withdrawn at my father’s death.”

“The bequests being the investments you told me about,” Dean prodded.

“For the most part, yes. It is how I came to be placed at Winchester.”

The breeze picked up in the south field, creating a susurrus of sound in the eruption of flowers. In the distance, a light from a small hut stood out against the slowly darkening sky.

“And now you have an income from Winchester and you have changed those old investments for new investments which I signed contracts for,” Dean narrated.

“Yes.”

“Why? Why did I sign? I’m only an omega. Your own signature is worth ten of mine.”

Castiel stopped at the edge of the lane, took a deep breath while contemplating the scuttling clouds, and said, “When my father died, my mother had nothing of her own. She married again just to put food in our bellies, but she was not treated well there. If something happens to me, I want you never to worry about your living, never to be pressured into staying with your brother or with anyone you do not choose.”

Dean faced the alpha and put his hands on the fluttering tail of his cravat to still it. “What will happen to you, alpha, that will not also happen to me? We will be together,” Dean whispered. “Always.”

Low thunder rumbled in the distance.

Castiel’s throat felt tight as he swallowed. “I must go, Dean.”

A thin spike of lightning flashed far beyond Dean’s left shoulder as he peered at Castiel’s troubled face. “What? Go where?” he demanded, almost whispering.

“In five day’s time, I sail for the West Indies, Dean.”

Dean’s fingers fell from the tips of Castiel’s cravat and when the omega did not reply, the alpha pressed on. “In exchange for dispensation to marry you, the Prince Regent has demanded a service of me.”

The confusion was clear across Dean’s features. “For marrying me? Why on earth would the regent care who marries me? I’m nothing. Some lowborn omega from the capital’s slums.”

“Dean, _you_ are a duke’s brother, a princess’ brother-in-law.”

Castiel watched as his mate’s face went from trusting and open to firmly shuttered. Dean said nothing more.

“I’m no one,” Castiel coughed and continued, desperately hoping to be understood, “I’m the one in this relationship who is utterly without power or privilege. You are part of the royal family now, and the only way the regent would agree to our match was for me to go to the West Indies and put down a rebellion that is taking money from his royal pockets.”

Dean did not move except to swallow and curl his hands into fists. The wind, strong enough now to move Dean’s hair around, hissed and whined through the field, pressing the flowers into the dirt and loosening petals. The lightning, closer now, gave a stroboscopic dance along the horizon.

“He has sent Ion and Bartholomew to ensure I depart the morning after our wedding to fulfill this duty an--”

“The Regent!” Dean ground out, and his fist shot up to Castiel’s chest in a blow that would leave an angry bruise on the colonel’s collar bone.

“The bloody regent, “ Dean’s other fist volleyed forth, catching Castiel’s chin and rattling his head, “who has ruined my friends, destroyed their livings—” Dean punched Castiel again, and the alpha stood as still as a statue and felt the pain of each blow. “The fucking regent snaps, and you jump to do his bidding.”

Finally Castiel’s hand shot forth to intercept Dean’s, and when he had the omega’s wrists held tight, he said, “I’m doing this for you, Dean. I am betraying my friends, too. I am betraying my principles, too and I’m doing it—all of it—for _you_!”

The first fat drops of rain were cold upon Dean’s face. But the fire under his skin burned hot as he pushed back against the alpha.

“Don’t pin this on me, Colonel Milton. I have only asked one thing of you, ever, and it was not for you to bend to the regent’s bidding!”

The sound of his angry yelling brought an old man from the shack nearby. “Everything alright, sirs?”

“We are fine,” Castiel replied curtly.

At that moment, Dean’s fury lashed out in violence, “We. Are. Not. Fine!” he growled as he lunged forward, throwing the alpha off balance and landing the pair of them in the tall wildflowers. Dean’s hands scrambled at Castiel’s cravat as the alpha tried without luck to hold the omega still. Dean straddled his alpha in the tall grass as the stampeding clouds unleashed their wetness. Not caring for the mud on his knees or the rain soaking his coat, when Dean got the knot at Castiel’s neck undone, he scrabbled at the silk, leaned in with an angry, trilling growl like no omega ever made, and he bit.

At first, Castiel did not feel a sting of pain. Instead, he felt the blood rush to his groin as the physiological reaction to his omega’s bite reshaped his molecules. No longer was he no one. No longer was he merely Castiel. From that moment forward, he was Dean’s mate, first and foremost. Instinct grabbed Castiel, and he captured his mate in his arms and rolled them so that he hovered over Dean. The alpha, too frenzied to worry over the fine linen, showed off his impressive strength by tearing Dean’s shirt apart before planting his own deep bite upon Dean’s throat in response.

Neither noticed the old farmer running up the lane toward the castle, but as Castiel was soon overcome by his instinct to shelter his omega from the weather, Castiel lifted Dean and carried him into the vacated shack.

As _Mate_ overwrote his every molecule and _Mate_ effervesced into his consciousness, he took little notice of the interior surroundings. The cabin was a bare but tidy room, and everything smelled strongly of wood smoke. Castiel, his eyes wild with mating madness and his mouth red from Dean’s blood, tore the rest of his mate’s clothes away. Dean’s face held a similar snarling determination as his blunt nails ripped at the laces on Castiel’s breeches.

Once Dean was bare and he had exposed as much of his alpha as possible while the man still wore his hessians, Castiel let his weight fall over the omega while he buried his face against Dean’s throat and sucked and licked at the fresh wound and pressed inside of his hot body. Dean tried to get to his alpha’s bite as well, to lick it clean and imprint the feeling of being cared for into Castiel’s very soul, but his muscles had all gone weak and pliant as a fever set in and all of his awareness honed in on the sensations of fullness and fucking. Dean felt the heat come over him like the heavy rain in the fallow field that had born down upon them moments before.

As he cleaned his mate’s throat, Castiel ground his body into Dean’s, ramping up the omega’s fever so quickly that Dean shook all over while his weak arms scrambled to pull his alpha in. All the while, Dean babbled incoherently, “Cas, please. Please please please. I need, Cas. More.”

Castiel’s strong arms held his omega down while touching every scrap of skin his hands could reach. When his fingers gently played across Dean’s brow, the omega whined, and when those same callused fingers plunged into Dean’s hot wet mouth, the omega sucked.

Castiel fucked into his mate fiercely, finding the spot within that made Dean howl and then slamming into it over and over. No one had ever touched Dean there, but now his alpha drove so deeply, so relentlessly within that he sent the omega into a state of madness so acute he understood nothing but his mate and his pleasure. He reached down between his own legs, where his soon-to-be-husband disappeared inside him and brought his fingers back glistening wet. Castiel pulled them up to his own face and sucked them clean.

Dean watched Castiel’s handsome face, lost in his passion, as the deep divot of fierce concentration on his brow gave way to the fluttering of his eyelids at the sublime taste. Dean could not help lunging up for a deep and probing kiss, and the alpha welcomed him into his mouth and kissed him as if to devour him, with his teeth bearing down on the brink of pain and his tongue soothing over the bites with hot, wet fury.

Dean could feel his heart throbbing in his breast as the fire consumed his body. He grabbed tightly to his alpha’s hair and pulled him ever closer and closer until their mouths were unable to separate. Their tongues caressed each other as their lips grabbed at one another, and Dean felt saliva slide down the corner of his mouth and sting at the bite on his neck. He had just released one hand from Castiel’s wild hair to feel at his bite with his fingertips when he was caught off guard by the fullness of the alpha’s knot thickening within him tightly. The omega, vocalizing his surprise at the sensation, wrapped his legs around his alpha and clung so tightly with all his limbs that Castiel could hardly move.

“Dean, Dean, you’re so perfect. I love you. I love you,” the alpha babbled while his hands reached around his own back to untangle the omega’s legs at least enough to let him thrust toward the finish line.

“More, alpha. Give me more,” Dean breathed into his alpha’s chin, and once Castiel had Dean’s wrists in his hands again, he planted them alongside Dean’s sweaty head and gave the omega more.

The ancient straw and rope bed was lumpy and uncomfortable beneath Dean’s back as the ropes separated and unraveled. The moldering stuffing began to burst out the seams of the cotton casing, but Dean hardly noticed it. The unearthly pleasure between his legs was enough to eclipse everything else that his senses catalogued in the periphery of his consciousness. Not the rain nor the thunder nor the guttering little candle nor the bed could distract him from the power of Castiel’s thighs and the slide of his flesh over the muscles that stood in bas-relief under his skin.

Castiel was a work of art, from his blue eyes clouded and focused with lust to the muscles of his abdomen highlighted in sweat. Dean dug his heels into his alpha’s ass and spurred him forward, deeper, harder.

Their grunts and ragged breaths were a symphony, and Dean knew the guttural sound of his alpha’s filthy curses would feature in his fondest dreams for the rest of his life.

When Dean thought the sex could not feel any better, his alpha’s knot caught, at last fully engorged. Castiel lifted Dean’s legs by the ankles and adjusted his angle and resumed his fucking with sweat rolling down his determined face, his eyes never leaving Dean’s as he thrust anew. Now it was Dean’s turn to vocalize so loudly the castle might hear, even from so great a distance, even over the rolling thunder.

“Let me hear you, omega,” Castiel encouraged as his thrusts began to skip outside of the rhythm he had set.

“Cas!” Dean screamed when he was overcome with a feeling like nothing he had ever brought upon himself beneath his threadbare blanket in the night. Cas watched Dean unravel with his kiss-swollen mouth wide open and his lust-dazed eyes half closed before he, too, was overtaken with exquisite bliss. Incapable of shouting his mate’s name, Castiel merely yelled a syllable of nonsense before collapsing onto his mate and allowing the waves of ecstasy to wash over him, hips still working of their own accord.

Slowly, Dean wrapped himself around his alpha again, despite the sweat and the wetness between them. The omega locked his ankles behind Castiel’s ass and his arms behind his neck and held the alpha close as he caught his breath.

They stayed in that position for several minutes before the colonel could muster himself to move onto his side and relieve Dean from his weight. Upon moving, Dean squeezed the cock still buried deep within him and Castiel’s hoarse voice let lose another inarticulate string of noise.

“I love you, Castiel,” Dean said, once they were on their sides, the omega still clinging tight, but obviously growing sleepy, and the alpha beginning to feel his limbs relax, safe in the arms of his omega. Castiel regarded Dean with his too-blue eyes and reached out with gentle fingertips to trace along his face. He loved that brow. He loved that nose. He loved those lips, that chin, that cheek.

“I love you, too, Dean,” he murmured; sleep begged to dig its claws into him. “More than you can know.”

“Sleep, alpha,” Dean said before teasing his mate’s cock with another squeeze.

Castiel’s eyes shot momentarily wide as he gasped. He leaned forward to kiss the impish smile off of his omega’s pretty mouth.

They dozed lightly and exchanged soft half-sleeping kisses and touches throughout the rainstorm and well past moonrise, at which point the alpha thought he should clean his omega with his mouth. Dean blushed to feel his alpha’s tongue buried deep within his hole, wriggling against the sensitive flesh therein. Meanwhile Castiel moaned and suckled and sent vibrations throughout Dean’s body that made his nipples stand hard and his cock spurt forth. So it was when Castiel took Dean’s cock into his mouth that the whole sweaty process kicked off anew until Dean was incoherent with his hunger for the alpha and then incoherent from the alpha’s attentions.

Throughout the night, the frogs sang loudly as Castiel wrung as many orgasms out of Dean as he physically could before the pair of them finally fell into the deep and tranquil sleep of thorough satisfaction, mid-kiss, replete with love and satisfaction, yet oblivious to the fact that the hunger would return twofold upon their waking.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which there is a wedding and the princess shares a precious gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (mating)

### 

They remained isolated in the shack for three days and nights. Each day a basket appeared on the sill of the open window, wherein Dean and Cas found hearty cold foods and bottles of wine and ale. No one disturbed them except the cat that evidently lived at the cottage. She brought them mice and moths and other dainty wedding presents.

On the fourth morning of their isolation in the shack, well before the sun had risen, the couple was awakened by the smell of hot food. Ellen and Rowena were at the window with aromatic coffee and bacon as well as eggs and bread. After he ravenously shoved the third piece of bacon into his face, the women absconded with Dean, wrapped in a blanket from their basket, through the crooked doorway, leaving Castiel blinking in the semi-darkness with his coffee. Immediately Gabriel and Balthazar stormed in, shoved Castiel into his ruined clothes, and dragged him to the dogcart in order to drive him up to the castle’s washroom and bathe him for his wedding.

“You smell ripe, brother. I’m amazed Dean could stand to be in an enclosed space with you,” Gabriel complained.

“Dean told me I smell delicious,” Castiel sniped back.

“Considering he used to live on Glassblowers Street, we won’t hold him accountable for his warped sense of smell, then.”

In the kitchen, as Jessica straightened Sam’s cravat for him and selected a rosebud for his lapel, the duke complained that going ahead with the wedding at this point was like shutting the barn door after the cows had all run away, but Missouri shut him up with a stern look and a glance at her granddaughter, who, though less flagrantly, was in much the same boat and blushing about it. Charlie held Patience’s hand unapologetically.

“I think it’s romantic,” Jessica sighed. “No one bites each other anymore.”

“It’s positively medieval,” the Duchess Amelia, grumped with a look on her face like soured milk. “I mean, not only does no one bite anymore, but even on old people with bites, it’s only ever the omega.”

“Can you even imagine,” the young Princess Daphne hissed, “an omega putting a claim on an alpha like that?”

“In this day and age!” the duchess agreed.

Dean Winchester’s bite upon his alpha was already the stuff of legend, having been witnessed by old Roy Johnson and spread like wildfire all over Winchester.

The Duke of Winchester, the princesses, the young duchess, and all of the friends of the grooms, who ranged from Colonel Milton’s brothers and his captains to the blacksmith, farrier, cook, and housekeeper, gathered outside the church, making a heretofore-unseen spectacle of the little country wedding, much to the vicar’s grudging amusement.

Lady Charlie loaned her phaeton to the happy couple, and they drove up at sunrise to disappear into the church looking decidedly less happy than the gathered guests expected after, presumably, four days of non-stop sex.

The gentlemen, Sam, Gabriel, and Balthazar, exchanged a concerned glance as they followed Dean and Castiel into the little stone building to stand as their witnesses and sign the bible.

The ceremony, timed to catch the rising sunlight as it filtered through the antique stained glass behind the altar, was brief and perfunctory. Soon the grooms’ brothers, and Father Jim Murphy piled into the various gathered carriages to ride back up to the castle for a picnic meal that, due to Dean’s insistence on an early morning ceremony, was a compromise between a wedding breakfast and a wedding luncheon, that Lady Charlie dubbed the Wedding Brunch.

The grooms themselves had expressed their wishes to walk back to the castle. A mile in the fresh air, Dean suggested, would do well to clear the heat from his blood at last. Castiel, stoic in his uniform by his husband’s side, said nothing. His eyes and his entire aspect adhered to Dean, however, and it was clear to anyone who saw them that the alpha would follow the omega anywhere.

Once the wagons had drawn away from the church, their passengers whispering about the unusually quiet state of the grooms, Dean turned to his husband. Calmly pulling the sapphire pin from its knot at the alpha’s throat and stashing the ornament between his teeth before untying Castiel’s white silk in an echo of the other night’s treatment of his cravat, Dean spoke, “I think it will be well for our wedding guests to see the bite upon your throat.” The angry red welt, teased by Dean’s teeth at regular intervals to keep it looking bright, shone starkly against Castiel’s pale skin, but the colonel only raised his chin and showed it off more proudly as Dean wrapped the white silk around his own wrist like a knight of old would wrap his damsel’s favor.

Once finished with that, Dean took Castiel’s sapphire pin from between his teeth and pocketed it before loosening his own cravat to bare his throat to the cool morning air, sporting a bite well on its way to healing already.

Castiel grabbed his wrist.

“Dean,” he moaned. “Dean, I love you. I know that you must hate me now, but--”

“Hate you?” The morning sun glinted off the gold in Dean’s green eyes, and Castiel thought him the most beautiful and righteous man in the world.

Dean merely grabbed his husband’s chin and looked deep into his eyes as he said, “I never could hate you. I never will hate you. But you must never forget you are mine. _Mine_. Not the regent’s pawn. And certainly not at liberty to avail yourself of the wares at dockside taverns like some privateer. You are _my_ husband. _My_ mate. As such, I expect you to come back to me whole and alive once you have played the regent’s foolish game.”

Dean’s eyes began to glisten in the sunlight, and he pulled away. Tucking his own cravat into Castiel’s pocket, as the alpha only nodded gravely. In the silence of agreement, their hands intertwined, Dean fiddled with the sapphire pin in his pocket as he strode purposefully up the familiar lane toward the castle as if daring his husband to try to slow his progress.

At the end of the walk, Dean set his mind to shake off the air of gravity and enjoy the damn party he had planned for weeks. If the wedding brunch was lively, it was mostly down to Dean’s bright smile and boisterous laugh. He was the very picture of the smitten groom, and all the guests soon forgot the earlier somber atmosphere and delighted in him. Even the whispers at Castiel’s exposed throat faded with the passing morning, as the alpha clung to his mate’s hand throughout the meal, uncertain whether he was reassuring himself or the omega, but awkwardly eating with his left hand all the same.

The food, also, was more than Dean could have hoped, as he had formulated the menu a month ago, a lifetime ago, with an altogether different kind of occasion in mind. As he tasted every tart and sampled every delicacy, Dean was determined to have happy memories of this day, just as he held onto his happy memories of the previous nights in his husband’s ravenous embrace.

The pain of being parted that pierced his heart was a poison that he would not allow into his blood until Castiel was actually gone. And if his husband were never to return from his fool’s errand far across the sea, then it would be the regent’s heart that would break and whose blood would curdle for it, not his own. Dean swore it to himself, even with no idea how his vengeance would manifest, should the need for it arise.

After the sinful treats from the feast, after the bubbling wine, and the lively songs, the grooms were allowed a few hours in the north wing of the castle, in the bed that had been prepared for them, before Castiel would have to ride for the capital city and the ship that readied there to take his regiment across the ocean.

The soft comfort of a real bed after several nights on the small straw cot of the old farmer’s shack seemed a royal luxury. Dean undressed quickly and spread himself on the soft sheets to watch his husband unlace his hessian boots.

“Knot me alpha,” Dean purred. “Once more before your captains drag you away to that ship.”

Castiel, dropping his belt to the rug, finally, finally, allowed himself to smile. “Yes, my dear,” he replied, unbuttoning the red coat and pulling his shirt over his head. Regarding the beautiful man on the white sheets, he knew he would never tire of being ruled by Dean Winchester.

“Oh,” Dean said, as if suddenly remembering something. “Give me your accursed red coat while you take your damn time undressing.”

“Yes, my dear,” Castiel bowed, handing the coat over.

Dean raised an eyebrow at his husband’s cheekiness, but dug his fingers into his pocket and pulled out the sapphire cravat pin while also manifesting from a plain wooden box well a small silver implement of some kind. Castiel worked his socks down his calves as Dean picked a spot on the coat’s lapel and pinned the shining silver jewel there. He held the coat up to his husband.

Castiel approached and leaned forward to peer at it in the light from the window. It was two letters intertwined with a delicate vinework of wildflowers.

“C and D,” Castiel mused. “It is beautiful,” he said.

Dean reached up and pressed a nearly invisible clasp at the side of the initials and the device opened slowly with the faint ticking of tiny clockworks. The C and D inverted, each on its own hinge, like a blossoming flower, to reveal a lock of hair sealed beneath them with a dollop of wax. Castiel gazed at the love token and felt his eyes grow wet.

“I was very worried you might be tempted to forget me,” Dean murmured, threatening to stab Castiel with the sapphire cravat pin still in his hand. “And that was before I knew you were leaving me for the West Indies.”

Touching his new brooch, Castiel leaned over to kiss his husband before snatching the cravat pin from his hand and pulling Dean’s own new superfine summer wool frocked coat off the heap of clothing on the floor. “I could never forget you, my love,” he smiled serenely as he pinned his sapphire on the breast of Dean’s coat, over where he hoped his husband’s heart would rest once he put the garment back on.

Dean reached up and pulled at his alpha’s hair, “I thought I told you to knot me, alpha.”

“Yes, my dear.”

The husbands were awakened late in the day by a rap at their door. “Colonel, the express has come, sir. We sail at dawn.”

Castiel blinked his eyes open and yawned so widely his jaw popped. Dean groaned and curled himself around his husband.

“Colonel,” the voice at the door came again. “Sir, do you hear? We must depart within the hour.”

“I hear you,” Castiel ground out in his gritty, overused voice.

Footsteps retreated from the door.

“I must go, Dean,” he whispered.

Dean, not trusting his voice, only nodded. They had discussed this moment. The sun had just begun to slide down toward the west when Castiel kissed Dean and then dressed hurriedly.

Turning back again once he was dressed, Castiel grabbed Dean and pulled his sleep-warm body into his chest. “I love you, Dean Winchester. I will come back to you soon.”

“Two years,” Dean whispered, squinting against the rays of the setting sun that slanted across the window. He would watch it fall tonight and watch the moon rise after it, knowing his husband rode the stony way toward the capital where a ship awaited to carry him away.

Castiel dragged his fingertips over his lover’s face, memorizing every freckle he could see in the mix of soft and fierce light.

“I will make them swift,” he promised, hollowly, and kissed Dean again.

As Castiel stood, Dean’s body melted back into the bed and a single tear trickled down his face.

“I love you,” he croaked when Castiel’s hand was on the door handle.

Turning back for a last heart-wrenching look, Castiel swallowed the words he could not say and smiled briefly at Dean once more before he departed.

Dean remained morose in the first several weeks of Castiel’s absence. When a thin, fragile looking letter arrived for him on stained paper that had obviously been soaked in its travels, he took it from the breakfast table to his bedroom and placed it upon his desk. He told himself he would wait to read it when he was feeling especially low in hopes that whatever his husband had to say would help him to feel better.

It was more than a month before another such letter came, but this time the paper was thicker and tied with a hemp string beneath its seal, indicating it was actually more than one letter delivered in tandem.

Still, he set the post aside, placing it upon his desk like the other one, this time because his head swam from a summer cold or some such ailment that had been plaguing him of late, and he did not wish to read it with a headache.

Thinking over his symptoms as they lingered tediously, Dean began to wonder if he could possibly be feeling the early stages of a heat. He thought it was too soon after mating to be sick in such a way again, but what did he know about it? He was clearly no expert on omega biology, not having had his mother around in his youth, so the symptoms caused a new worry to crop up.

That afternoon, Dean approached his sister in law.

“Jess?” he began, finding the princess in the blue parlor with her ladies doing handwork and chatting. He supposed if he had been brought up to it, he would be sitting there, too, embroidering cornflowers onto pillows and darning his mate’s socks. He cleared his throat when she looked up from her needlework with an expectant smile. “Princess Jessica,” he hemmed, noticing the scowls from the younger ladies at his familiar address. “I was wondering if you might spare me a moment? Perhaps a turn through the gallery?”

“Of course, dear brother,” she said, and it was code that calling her Jess was perfectly acceptable. His shoulders relaxed a fraction as she rose to join him.

She took his proffered elbow and they took up a sedate pace through the corridor toward the long portrait gallery. The room was made just for walking, with windows adorning the entire length of the long south wall and portraits of Winchesters, long dead, arranged tightly together upon the north wall.

Pausing beneath one blue eyed Winchester with an elaborate wig and even more elaborate shoe buckles, Dean said, “This one reminds me of Cas. The chin. The eyes.”

Jess regarded the portrait, “The chin is very familiar, yes,” she murmured and then turned to poke a fingertip into the cleft on Dean’s chin.

His hand reached up automatically to rub at the spot. “Sam and I have the cleft, as well.”

“Indeed,” Jessica smiled. “You are Winchesters, after all.”

“Not—But Cas—” Dean stammered. “Are we cousins?” he whispered.

Jessica giggled and dragged Dean closer to the wall. Beneath the wainscoting, recessed iron pulls, which Dean had always mistaken for decoration, opened deep drawers revealing maps of the Winchester estate going back centuries. When the first drawer failed to provide whatever Jess was looking for, she dragged Dean a yard further down the gallery and pulled another handle. Thus they spent the better part of half an hour, at times becoming distracted by the documents they discovered, until they found the item Jess was searching for.

“Here we are!” she exclaimed. Pulling the drawer out to its fullest extent so that it stood like a table jutting out from the wall, Jess revealed an elaborately drawn family tree.

“Do you know any of your ancestors’ names?” she asked.

“My father was John. His father was Henry. Before that was a Samuel, I think, though that might have been on my mother’s side. I’m not certain.”

Jessica dragged a finger over the broad sheaf of canvas upon which the design of a tree was painted with names upon every branch. “Do you know Castiel’s father’s name?”

“Charles, I think?”

“Hmm.” Jessica and Dean scoured the document together. The first Duke of Winchester was a Charles. The document stopped at the eleventh. Presumably Castiel’s father died before having the opportunity to update it.

“Look,” Dean said, pointing to a brother of the eighth duke. “This fellow is a Dean.”

Jessica began to trace her finger from there but stopped short. “Oh, he is a distant cousin,” she murmured. “Look, the seventh duke only had daughters, so the estate went to this cousin, but the previous duke died in battle so the relation between your branch of the tree and Castiel’s is…” she traced her finger to the previous entry, nearly two-hundred years in the past, with a coat of arms beside it and tapped the name. “Jack.”

“Jack?” Dean’s forehead creased. “But isn’t that the name of the fellow with the wig and embroidered garters?” He strolled back up the gallery to the portrait of the man with the cleft chin.

“Four generations ago,” Jessica mused.

“So we are not cousins.”

“Not that it matters, but you are not,” Jessica smiled benignly. “Or if you are, the line is more than a hundred and fifty years removed.”  
Dean stared up at the painting of Jack, 8th Duke of Winchester and put his finger to his chin as Jess had done. How many times had he done the same to Sam, annoying the boy, as he grew into his features in his teen years? To Cas before he left?

“But I got you off track,” Jessica said. “You wanted to speak with me about something else, I think.”

Dean allowed his eyes to linger a moment longer on old Duke Jack before plucking up his courage to speak. Before he could begin, he looked around the empty room and dragged Jessica even further from the doorways.

Once they were at the center of the gallery, and Dean was certain they could not be overheard, he cleared his throat and began.

“I have heard,” he said, “that mated omegas cannot survive a heat alone.”

Jessica paused in mid step before ducking her head and placing her free hand atop Dean’s. She took a breath before replying. “I have many siblings, and several are omegas, so trust me when I tell you what I know.” Turning them to walk again under the watchful eyes of the family portraits, she continued. “Mated omegas are perfectly safe without their alphas. Even true mates. It’s the lack of a knot that can cause the omega to become ill during heat.”

Dean was quiet for several steps as he worked through this information. “But, Jess, if there is no alpha, there is no knot.”

She tilted her head and looked Dean in the eye. “You must get a simulation.”

“A what?”

“A _dildo_ ,” she whispered.

Dean stopped in his tracks and peered at the red-faced princess, feeling his own face heat up at the same time.

“You’re joking.” he whispered.

She shook her head, unable to hide the grin blooming upon her face.

They stared at one another for some moments, Dean’s mouth agog and Jess worrying her bottom lip between her teeth to quell her smile.

Finally, she took Dean’s hand and led him to the staircase.

Jessica all but dragged Dean to her room, and planted him on the beribboned divan as she carefully extracted an ornate box from her armoire.

The ebony box was decorated with an inlaid mosaic of mother of pearl and ivory with gold filigree and a delicate gold latch. Jess placed it on Dean’s lap and stood back, nodding to him to open it.

He opened it slowly to reveal an ivory phallus.

Dean shut the box promptly, his face burning red.

Gently, his sister-in-law sat down beside him and drew the lid open once more. She let one delicate finger slide along the elegant ivory before hefting out of its velvet casing.

“It was a gift from my third sister. She suffered a great deal from mating sickness when her husband was on the continent.”

Handing the tool to Dean so he could feel its girth and weight, she continued, “I have not needed it. Obviously,” she added with a giggle, “Sam has not left me alone.”

Dean groaned. “Jess, please.”

“But I haven’t had a heat anyway,” she went on. “Because I’m expecting. So you may take it.”

“What?” Dean tore his eyes away from the ivory dildo.

“Take it. My gift to you. Since your husband is away and mine is not, you have more need of it than I do.”

Together they stared at the phallus a moment longer before Dean snapped the box shut and rose to store it in his room. “Thank you, Jess. This is such a relief.”

“Well, perhaps it will be,” she winked turning back toward the staircase.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the duke (finally) takes his stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (mpreg)

### 

The next letter from Castiel came soon after the bundled letters, and by then Dean’s illness had progressed enough to attract Ellen’s and Rowena’s notices. He had not fallen into a heat, had not had occasion to open the ornate box now stored inside his own armoire. Instead, when the matrons of the house discovered he would not eat his favorite foods, took to napping every afternoon, and all but bit Sam’s head off over a game of chess, they declared him pregnant and began to drive him mad with cups of tea and “gentle” treats that would sit easy on his stomach.

All Dean wanted was a huge hearty meal and his alpha in his arms again.

He was irritable.

Sam avoided him.

Dean had been forbidden to ride Baby.

He set the new letter in a pile on his desk with its fellows, unopened.

Avoiding everyone who wanted to coddle him, Dean sought refuge more often with his sister-in-law. Since Princess Jessica was expecting as well, Dean accepted her company, her hugs, and her advice. He even began to confide in her in a way that reminded him of how he and Sam used to confide in one another before Sam’s scholarship to the university, before he had made new and better friends. As he grew to know Jessica better, she allowed Dean to feel the new, small bump on her stomach, and she patiently answered his myriad questions about what to expect.

In the tranquility he felt after their talks, he began to consider opening his letters, thinking how nice it would be to see Castiel’s elegant hand upon the page, how the descriptions of his travel might make him feel closer to his husband again. But he liked having the letters there for him, to have something of his husband, new and intact, in case the worst should happen. On quiet afternoons, Dean worried the sapphire cravat pin with his fingers and allowed himself to doze in light dreams of his husband’s touch.

When an express rider rang the bell during breakfast one morning, Dean’s heart dove into his shoes. He felt the blood drain from his face as he heard Ketch open the door, and he clenched his fists in the tablecloth waiting for the letter to make its way into the breakfast room.

When Ketch delivered it to Sam rather than Dean, the older brother tried to take a drink of tea to soothe his arid mouth and calm himself, but the cup shook so violently that he had to set it down before he stained the tablecloth. Jessica slipped her hand to him in comfort beneath the table.

Sam tore open the letter and gasped, “It’s from Bobby,” he muttered. “Mr. Singer,” he clarified for the younger ladies. “He’s in the capital doing some recruiting to bring more people to Winchester, and he says the entire community is a tinderbox. Since he is no longer an insider among them, he isn’t sure of when, but he says the citizens of Glassblowers Street are planning to riot against the landlords and the soldiers who demand higher payment or immediate eviction.”

Castiel was not dead. Dean could think of nothing else for a long moment.

Looking up from the letter at last, Sam appeared thoughtful. Balthazar gestured for the paper, and when Sam handed it over to him, Dean asked, “Why did Bobby write to _you_ about it?”

“He wrote it to both of us, actually,” Sam sighed. “It is your friend Cole who has incited the people to consider violence at all.”

Before Dean could react to that, Balthazar spoke to Gabriel, “Brother, I think we should go there.”

“To throw money at the situation? It may be too late for that,” Gabriel mused, taking the letter from Balthazar’s hand.

“We may be able to speed Mr. Singer’s work by showing the craftsmen that there will be money for them in Winchester if they will come.”

“Offer them an advance, you mean?” Dean asked. “Moving expenses.”

Balthazar nodded, “There’s an idea. If we can get some of the citizens to leave now, there may not be enough of them left to riot.” He sent Kevin with a message to Mick to saddle his destrier right away.

Dean stood.

“Dean? Where are you going?” Sam asked.

“To collect some things for the journey.”

All the alphas in the room protested at once. Each of them argued that he could not travel or that he could not enter a volatile situation or that he was in too delicate a condition to upset himself. The cacophony prompted the irritable omega to slam his fist upon the table to shut them up.

His sister-in-law was not cowed by pregnant omega fits of temper, and she spoke out first. “It is simply not done, Dean,” Jessica insisted.

“Neither is a mating bite, but here we are; the world has not ended.”

“You haven’t even finished--” Sam sighed since Dean had already stalked from the room and was by then out of hearing distance, “your breakfast,” he finished weakly.

“I will go and reason with him,” Jessica said to Sam, rising to follow her brother-in-law.

“Good luck,” Sam muttered, running a hand through his hair.

Jessica paused a moment to regard her brother-in-law before she knocked at Dean’s open door. He was seated at his desk, running his fingers over a letter that was unopened, the seal still crisp and whole on the paper. When Dean looked up at her knock, he dropped the letter like a guilty man and sat back in his chair.

“Come in,” he said.

Jessica entered and walked around the desk in order to peer at the small pile of post Dean had accumulated.

“You have not read your letters.”

Dean merely shook his head.

“If it were Sam--” she paused, censoring whatever she had been about to say. When she sat with a sigh on the edge of Dean’s bed, the princess said, “It is well that he left you with child.”

Dean looked up at her. “So I have something to remember him by?” he asked glumly.

“No, silly. Because now you won’t need to use the dildo!”

Surprised, Dean laughed, head thrown back and eyes bright as Jess giggled with him.

“I have always heard from my sisters that it is a bit of a fumble to hit the right spot with it, though your brother has not yet given me the opportunity to confirm it for myself,” she smiled.

Dean scrunched his nose.

“Seriously, though, Dean, you must take care of yourself. Stay home with me and keep your spirits up. I have not seen you smile or heard you laugh like this since the colonel departed. You mustn’t be wild and risk the baby with your crusader spirit and put your own life in danger, too.”

Dean considered her gentle prodding. His eyes homed back in on his letters from Castiel. If the alpha did survive the dangers of the West Indies only to return home to find his husband and child dead… It did not bear considering. He sighed.

“So Lord Balthazar will go to the city to help Bobby get as many of the people out of the hot zone as possible,” he stated. “What will Sam do? They’re his family.”

“You’re his family,” she insisted. “I’m his family.”

“Begging your pardon, your highness, but if I know anything at all, I know that family don’t end in blood. Sam Winchester’s family is the people trying to save their homes, trying to survive against oppression and stacked odds. They’re the ones who shared their bread with us when I couldn’t scrape together enough pennies in a week to buy it. They’re the ones who used leftover yarn from their shops to knit ugly blankets for us so Sam’s bed was warm and comfortable. They’re the ones who came into our horrible little room to care for us when we were sick. Those people gave us their love and care, and now that we have means, we have given them nothing in return.”

“You are giving them an opportunity to come here and have a better life,” she insisted.

“No, Princess. Lord Balthazar and Lord Milton are giving them that opportunity. It is not Sam who’s investing in Winchester; it’s only his land by the regent’s whim. Castiel brought his brothers here because they wanted to invest in experiments. And well meaning as they are, if the experiments fail, it will be no personal loss to them. Gabriel has his modern architecture, and Balthazar has his waterworks, and they jumped on the opportunity to build their ideas here, just as they are eager to build the town up with tenants who can test their building schemes.” He stood and paced to the window. “The people,” he continued, “are terrified. They have been bullied by their betters for their whole lives in the city, but at least they know the city. Now they are being asked to give up what they know and move to this rural backwater that many of them have never heard of. To give up their homes and businesses on some stranger’s promise that they will be able to make livings here.”

Jessica’s brow furrowed. “What more could Sam do than is already being done?”

Dean turned to her. “Sam could go there to make them a promise to their faces. For most, that alone would be enough. Those people do not need Balthazar’s money to convince them to come. They need the word of their brother, their son, to tell them life will be good for them here.”

Dean finally sat again and said one last thing, “They baked cakes and pies and threw Sam a party when he won the scholarship to attend the university, and he smiled and cried and danced with them that night. When Patience said to him, ‘You’d better not forget us when you’re a big success, Sam Winchester,’ he grinned at her and said, ‘I could never forget any of you.’ Now he barely speaks to her when she is in the house. Charlie has started taking meals with her in their room because of Sam’s constipated facial expression when he sees them.”

“They are unmarried,” Jessica argued.

“They are mates,” Dean insisted. “Even without the bites, on Glassblowers Street that was more than enough.”

Jessica looked thoughtful. Some time passed in silence before she reached out for Dean’s hand and squeezed it affectionately before leaving him alone.

Balthazar and Gabriel rode out directly after breakfast. They sent an express the next day that confirmed Bobby’s dire prediction; Dean and Sam’s old neighborhood was a hotbed of dissent against the new landlords and the municipal court that had not only permitted but also validated their extortionate methods. Soldiers were numerous and intolerant on the streets. Women and omegas scurried to and fro in timid clusters while the neighborhood alphas strutted and egged the soldiers into bullying or even, at times, skirmishing. Several alphas were laid up with minor and sometimes dire bayonet wounds, and Bobby was spending most of his time there offering door-to-door medicine and trying to talk caution into the hotheads.

Dean was anxious with worry over being so far removed from the arena and the news generated therein. He knew that such a volatile situation was likely changing by the hour, and he could feel the tension from Bobby’s letter that the time had come for the crisis to break. Dean knew that the next letter would not bring good news. He wanted to be there in the thick of the conflict with his friends, to witness the outrage first hand, and, most of all, to help. He went so far as to write a letter to Cole and send it express with the few coins he had in his purse. Castiel had told him he would not leave without making sure Dean had more money than that, but then their bites had triggered their heat and rut, and some things had naturally fallen by the wayside.

When a wagon of omegas and children arrived in the yard the following day with a note from Gabriel, the stables were hastily cleaned and cleared out so the newcomers would have a place to sleep. Ellen and Claire got the kitchen working full tilt to feed the hungry new mouths, and Rowena had all the kitchen maids and footmen stuffing mattresses with straw and laying blankets on makeshift beds in the stables until she could get the castle’s north wing cleaned properly over the next few days to house people better. Sam adamantly argued that homes could be made livable in the town, amidst the construction, but Dean told his brother to stop trying to evict people who had just been evicted from the city. “What would they eat in town? How would they heat water? There’s no coal, no food, no stores. They’re staying right here until the town can take care of them,” Dean raged in fiery righteousness, and Sam said nothing.

Dean was in the thick of things, then, helping the newcomers to feel at ease, as much as was possible in the situation. Seeing an old familiar face did wonders for settling them down, and everyone was thrilled to scent that Dean was expecting. Even so, he did not shirk from work. He stuffed mattresses, ladled soup, chased horses out of the way, and collected soiled linens to be washed by the household. He had his own copper tub brought down into the half-reconstructed forge building, that being the closest outbuilding to the stables with a working fireplace, other than Mick and Ketch’s little house that could not be expected to be put to the newcomers’ use. There, Dean kept a cauldron of hot water boiling all the day through for baths, allowing the refugees to wash themselves, and their garments, if they were not willing to hand the clothes over to be washed in the big pots in the castle.

Unfortunately, the next morning another express arrived from the capital with dire news. Glassblowers Street was burning. Red coats had swept through arresting absolutely everyone they could catch and lighting fires in their wake. Half its citizens were imprisoned for debts or rioting or vagrancy, and landlords were calling for justice, reimbursement, and hangings. Trials would begin as early as later that day, and the Metropolitan court promised swift justice to the investors who had bought the homes out from under the long-term tenants of the neighborhood.

At the end of his patience, Dean was ready to saddle Baby and make his own way there when Charlie said that she and Patience would drive a wagon into the capital in order to transport as many more people to Winchester as possible. Dean approved of this plan and furthermore was absolutely determined to join his friends. He reasoned that since the mission would require an overnight trek back to Winchester, the ladies would need someone to handle a rifle on the wagon in case of footpads. Benny had already driven one of the construction wagons from the town to collect people, too.

Though Sam insisted Dean should stay behind, “It would not look well, Dean, for a pregnant omega to travel into a riot and wield a weapon,” the omega turned on his brother fiercely. “Sam, what the hell, man? What do you mean by ‘it wouldn’t look well?’ Why aren’t _you_ saddling up one of your Italian racehorses? Why aren’t _you_ halfway to the capital right now to fight for our friends, our neighbors?”

“Fight against who, Dean? My brother-in-law? They are not our neighbors any more.”

Livid and on the verge of throwing a punch at his brother, the elder Winchester regarded the duke. Sam wore his white trousers pressed and his hessian boots polished. His cuffs were lace, his waistcoat embroidered, and his tailcoat studded with silver buttons swirling with mother of pearl inlays. His nails were manicured, his sideburns fashionable, and his cravat elegantly tied in a continental style.

“No, I guess not, Sammy,” Dean said quietly, plucking at his own shirtsleeves that were rolled up to the elbows because he hadn’t even bothered to don a coat in the mild summer weather amidst the day’s outdoor work. “They’re not _your_ neighbors.”

Dean turned his back on Sam and went to Ellen for some cheeses, fruits, dried meats, and bread to take in a burlap sack. He imagined the folks they collected from the debtor’s prison would be hungry on the journey. Then he collected a large pile of saddle blankets to line the bed of the wagon; the new citizens of Winchester town would be cold as the wagon lumbered along overnight. The thought of the exhausting journey reminded him of Castiel’s stories about a railway, and he wished it had been invented sooner.

Finally, he grabbed his greatcoat, and his wind-up torch, thinking that it would do more to scare footpads away from the wagon than the old hunting rifle or Lady Charlie’s pistol, and he met said lady and Patience in front of the stables. Looking up, Dean saw the shape of Sam standing in the golden parlor’s windows in the middle of the castle’s expansive facade, but then the curtain twitched and he was gone just as Charlie clicked at the horses and told them to walk on.

When their wagon returned from the capital, Missouri was there in the castle yard to greet it. When Patience saw her grandmother, she ran crying into her arms. Lady Charlie’s hair was tumbled from its chignon as she disembarked from the seat to begin helping Mick and the stable boys unload tired people and greet the next wagonload of them that soon arrived with Benny at its reins.

Dean had lost his greatcoat along the way, having wrapped it around a wounded man on the journey, and his shoulder was locked up from the cold and the strain of holding the heavy hunting rifle up all night. As he had predicted, the gun had not been required. Using his torch to light the road at night had kept anyone from approaching them, and the annotations in his little notebook about the number of hours the light bulb had yet burned gave Charlie a bit of hope amidst the darkness they had witnessed.

Dean ran a hand through his dirty hair as he stretched out his back. Soot stained his face and clothes, and spots of blood stood out brightly on his shirt. He shivered in the morning air as he unfurled his body from the position he had held too long.

When Dean saw Sam in the yard, he was surprised that his brother had bothered to come see the broke-down, displaced peasants who had come to avail themselves of his hospitality. But Sam’s arms were full of blankets, and Jessica, along with Duchess Amelia and Princess Daphne stood by with crockeries of hot tea laced with whiskey and honey, and Dean was grateful for the bracing drink.

So were the others, who were hesitant to approach the fine ladies, whom Dean could tell were not dressed in their usual finery but in their simplest frocks, but the newcomers greeted Sam, dressed today in an old coat without a hint of lace anywhere, with smiles, hugs, and pats on the shoulder like he was the prodigal son.

Everyone was glad to see he was well, thrilled to hear he would be a father (news which prompted some of them to hug Jessica, suddenly one of their own), and grateful to him when he directed them to follow Kevin and Kaia to the north wing of the castle where their meager rooms were waiting. Growing crowded, the north wing housed the former residents of the stables, a few of whom had pitched in on construction for doorframes and doors on the old rooms. Others sewed modest window coverings or in other ways helped to make the previously abandoned rooms of the castle habitable.

Once the people were settled, Charlie retired to her room to rest from the journey, and Dean caught Sam up on the news from the city over a hot meal.

“Cole’s dead,” he stated.

Sam looked shocked.

“Cole and Nick and Walter,” Dean listed. “And that nasty alpha woman who ran the trade emporium.”

“Bela Talbot?”

Dean made an affirmative noise. “Two of the street boys died in the fire,” he added, sick that he didn’t even know their names. He had been one of those boys once. “Maybe more. Hard to tell.”

“What about Cesar and Jesse?” Sam inquired.

“Prison.”

“Lee?”

Dean shook his head.

After a moment with his food, Dean told Sam and Jess of how many people were to be tried at the Old Bailey for the rioting, how large a sum was being demanded in reparations, and how the broadsheets indicated that Glassblowers Street was merely the first of what promised to be many neighborhoods to fall in the Prince Regent’s drive to “beautify” the city without allowing for the fact that so many citizens would be left displaced and desperate by his schemes.

Sam’s face, instead of passive, looked troubled. Dean exchanged a glance with Jessica, and when she looked away, Dean knew that his sister-in-law had been working on his brother. Good.

“Balthazar and Gabriel have decided to stay on,” Dean said, “to take up their seats when Parliament convenes in the coming weeks to denounce the way hard-working people are losing their homes and businesses to extortionate rents or tax schemes, biased judges, and this movement to destroy working class neighborhoods in the name of ‘beautifying’ the city.”

“If I could speak with my brother, or if my father still had his wits...” Jessica mourned.

“What could you say to the regent that a thousand citizens of the capital aren’t already saying?” Dean demanded. “I would ki--” Dean stopped himself. He was about to say something treasonous before getting hold of himself. “I would kick the regent’s teeth out, if I could,” he amended.

“At this point, so would I,” agreed Princess Jessica, and Dean was glad not to have offended her.

“I—” Sam started. The pregnant pause was long, but the others waited for him. “I—” Sam looked down at his plate. “I would do what I should have done already,” he said, sounding suddenly decisive. Taking Jessica’s hand he asked, “Will you write to your brother Gloucester and ask him to speak with the Regent about his immoral seizure of Glassblowers Street for his vain beautification project?”

“Yes,” Jessica replied, puzzled. “I don’t know why you think it will help,” she added.

“It will help,” he explained, “because I will go to the capital and take my seat in Parliament to speak against this madness of civic vanity projects using taxpayer money that burden those same taxpayers by interfering with their homes and businesses.”

“No matter how you couch that, Sammy, the regent will hear you speaking directly against him.” Dean warned. “You’ll be declaring yourself a Whig.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed, decisively.

“But darling,” Jessica said with a slow smile creeping onto her face, “You cannot be a Whig; we are part of the royal family.” It was utterly absurd! She had to laugh.

Sam took her hand and leaned forward, and Dean was excited to see that spark in Sam’s eye that meant he was truly engaged in something again. “That is why I want to get your brother Gloucester to speak against the scheme. I will also get some of my friends from university who happen to be peers and the Miltons and Lord Balthazar’s friends, Byron and the others, to stand against this with me. There is less danger if there are more voices.”

Jessica’s brown eyes were wide with wonder at the logic of her husband’s plan.

Dean nodded, internally dancing that his baby brother had finally decided to be a man. Externally, he voiced his worry, “Don’t get yourself locked up.”

Sam stood, “You’re forgetting, Dean, all that time I was at university, I earned my letters in the law.”

Jessica beamed at her husband’s back as he dashed off to pack a bag and call for his stallion.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the omega receives an upsetting letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (mpreg)

### 

Lady Charlie, without a seat in parliament, stayed at the estate, and as the highest-ranking alpha in the house, she was in charge. As such, Dean and Jessica were constantly submitted to Charlie’s chastisements to eat healthful foods and take invigorating walks and keep their spirits up for the sakes of the babies. When Dean’s belly stopped balking at everything he tried to eat, he began to eat quite a lot, and that belly began to protrude. He only became increasingly irritable as the summer heat ratcheted up, his buttons grew tight, and his hands and feet swelled or throbbed or both.

Charlie subscribed to the newspapers on express in order to keep a keen eye on the goings-on in parliament and at the Old Bailey. On the one hand, Dean was grateful for the uninterrupted stream of news. On the other, the daily arrival of the express rider frayed his nerves to their very ends. He had to train himself to stop thinking that when the bell rang it signaled word of his alpha’s death.

The downside to getting the city’s news from the legitimate newspaper instead of one of the broadsheets from the local neighborhoods was that often the items Dean was most interested in were not mentioned at all. When the paper reported on news from the law court, it tended to omit the names of those on trial unless they were especially wealthy, influential, or famous.

On the other hand, the newspaper carried pictures of celebrities that were nice to look at. The Shelleys were depicted dancing a Waltz at Almack’s, and baby Princess Alexandrina Victoria’s christening was celebrated with a large portrait of her tiny face, which Princess Jessica, the baby’s aunt, and Dean both marveled over.

Charlie had enacted several staffing changes. The influx of about forty new residents at the castle meant that a great deal more kitchen help was required. Charlie wrote to Sam and arranged to increase Ellen’s pay and hire three of the new omegas from the city to help her in the kitchens. Out of necessity, she did the same for Rowena a few days later to help with the cleaning and laundry.

Luckily, the weather was mostly fine, and on all but the soggiest days, a great table was laid in the yard at meal times. Everyone gathered and ate where they could in the yard and garden. Older folks had tables while the children sat on the grass with their plates. On wet days, the same process was performed in the great hall of the castle where once, long ago, it seemed, there had been a dance held to welcome Sam and Jess back from their honeymoon.

When Lady Charlie and Dean were not running things around Winchester, they were in Charlie’s workshop a great deal. She vacillated between worrying over her Quest for Patience and her lamps for the town.

She toyed with a plan to attach an electric turbine to the steam pump Balthazar had purchased to move the town’s clean water uphill, but the mathematics of the process were forbidding. It would cost more in coal to add the extra weight to the steam pump than the savings in electric light over gaslight could produce for the town.

Seeing Charlie discouraged, Dean began to generate mathematical equations of his own. When Charlie’s phaeton first arrived at the castle, Dean had spent weeks marveling at the swan’s neck springs that suspended the chassis over the carriage’s overlarge wheels. He had drawn them in detail in one of his notebooks, calculating the torque of the springs, the weight they could bear and still bounce.

Now, he spent days on equations and drawings of the mechanics of the large lamps that Charlie and Gabriel wanted to see placed strategically throughout the town. Dean calculated a spring like the one used in the suspension working of the phaeton to create a clockwork that could not only keep spinning for an extended period (any watch can do that) but also do so at great enough torque to create electricity. When Charlie mailed Dean’s work to Gabriel, he ran through his equations and returned them with notes, and when Charlie eventually showed the specifications to Benny to see if such a spring could even be made, they were overjoyed at the possibility.

Meanwhile Dean was sorry to be less helpful with the items for Lady Charlie’s quest, aside from promising to help her paint a light globe that could imitate the moon while she calibrated a softer filament from tin to use for mimicking moonlight instead of the brighter-glowing platinum. She had taken his idea of a ceramic pipe filled with seeds and dampened the sound of it by using a very long unfired clay pipe filled with beans instead, and it truly did sound like rain; but she still needed to work out the final item for the Quest in order to set a date for her wedding to Patience.

Sam wrote frequently in those hot days of late summer. When the remainder of Glassblowers Street, including the Winchesters’ former rooms above the bake house, burned to the ground Sam toured the area as it smoldered. He sent Dean detailed descriptions of the ruins from one end of the street to the other. The poverty, his letter said, was more appalling than any he had ever seen. Survivors of the fires were sick from smoke and had no money for cough medicines or physicians or even clothes that were untainted by smoke. They hovelled in the dilapidated shells of buildings, slept on the streets, and were turned away from rooms in adjacent neighborhoods when they tried to go anywhere else. Dean wrote back and offered to bring wagons again to transport people away from the ruined neighborhood. Sam, having already tried to convince the stubbornest folks, declined the offer but said to expect new tenants for Winchester at any time.

Throughout the summer months, a wagonload of people from Glassblowers Street or from the debtor’s prison or from a building under siege from tax collectors arrived almost weekly. When these new tenants came, Dean spearheaded the welcome committee, making sure every new person had a suitable place to live and do business if they had business to do.

Construction continued in the town of Winchester at a steady pace despite Gabriel and Balthazar being absent. Dean, in fact, had taken it upon himself to take his “invigorating exercise” in the form of a daily walk into town to check in with the workers, making sure they had the tools, supplies, food, and rest they needed.

He also made it his business to settle the new tenants as well as he could, making sure they knew where to get the goods they needed to start their own homes and how to get the money they needed for those things if they were broke.

He was amazed at how well Crowley’s mail-order scheme worked to keep the budding town supplied with bolts of cloth, staple foods, tools, and supplies. The tenants leapt at the chance to get their goods without returning to the city that held nothing for them but dark memories, violence, and perhaps the odd arrest warrant.

Thus the town grew steadily throughout summer and autumn.

The water pump, an enormous steam engine that Lord Balthazar sent in a wagon train of five teams of six, was erected, fitted with pipes, and fired up to supply the entire little town of Winchester with water to tap-fitted fonts at the top of each street. Dean explained to all the residents that in addition to piping clean water into their courtyards, it also drained the filthy water away.

“There will be no diphtheria or cholera in Winchester,” he liked to say.

When the weather began to cool, Dean surveyed maps to determine the best means for fueling the town with coal through the winter. There was bound to be a supply-train burden whether they received coal from the mines in the west or from the city in the east. The delivery that the town received already, to fuel its fires and its water engine, was costly. He didn’t know if, given the fact that the new town was still just getting off its feet, Winchester would be able to afford the extra coal that winter would require. Dean was discussing the prospects over a map with Charlie and Jessica one morning when a lone rider appeared in the yard. The gentleman’s top hat declared that he was not the express rider, so the trio carried on with their tea and conversation until Ketch showed the gentleman visitor in.

It was Lord Crowley.

Doffing his hat to the three of them, Lord Crowley bowed very low in greeting. When the princess had curtseyed and Dean and Lady Charlie had bowed in return, the four of them sat. Jessica called for another cup and a fresh pot of tea.

“I am glad to have found you at home, Mr. Winchester,” Crowley stated as Jessica poured for him.

Not knowing what to expect Dean adjusted his waistcoat, which was too tight but which he wore in a vain attempt to cover his belly, and said, “Thank you, Lord Crowley. I hope you are well.”

“Very well,” he affirmed, as he reached into his pocket. He drew out a small purse and placed it on Dean’s saucer. “I trust Colonel Milton apprised you of our business venture.”

Dean frowned at the purse but did not reach to touch it. Thinking back to the harried days before Castiel’s departure, he remembered, “He informed me that you would extend your mail-order scheme to Winchester,” he replied. “And it seems to be going very well,” Dean added. “When I am in town, the people speak well of the system. Winchester’s progress is beholden to you, sir.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Crowley nodded. “My last letter from Colonel Milton said that he hopes to centralize the service in Winchester town upon his return.”

Dean, not having read any letters from his husband, felt his gut burn hot with jealousy at hearing that Crowley had letters from Castiel. He had to tell his ridiculous emotions to calm down. Castiel and Crowley were in business together; of course they were in correspondence. When Dean did not answer him or move to inspect the purse, Crowley noticed the work spread out upon the table and deduced that they had been discussing coal sources and supply options. He seamlessly transitioned into a conversation with Lady Charlie and Princess Jessica about a coal supplier that used the river towpath through the southern counties.

Meanwhile Dean opened the small purse and saw that it contained more than three pounds! An idea began to form in his mind about how to use it.

Half distracted by the small fortune suddenly in his possession, Dean joined in on the discussion of cost and reliability for coal shipments to the regions around Winchester. Crowley offered to send his man to the castle later in the day with the means to contact his own supplier. He suggested that, business being what it was, combining their coal orders together under a single shipment per week, and using the towpath that ran along the southern borders of both properties, costs would be manageable to keep the entire county supplied with coal for the winter. Jessica and Lady Charlie were delighted at this breakthrough, and Dean lost himself in imagining railroad trains carrying tonnes of coal from the western counties all the way to the sea.

Dean was surprised out of his reverie when he was addressed directly by their guest. Donning his hat to leave, Crowley bowed to him and asked, “Mr. Winchester, will you see me to the stables so I may find my horse?” Dean was taken aback and glanced out the window over his shoulder at the horse relaxing beside the trough, but he rose to follow the gentleman out, nevertheless.

Outside, Crowley said, “Your husband’s last letter asks me about your health.”

Dean squinted into the feeble autumn sunlight.

“He mentions you but not the pup.”

Dean coughed and picked at his sapphire pin, words refusing to form in his mouth.

“The quarterly payments should be more, going forward,” the older squire said. “The first quarter bore the brunt of some expenses, which I catalogued in full in a ledger. You may drop by anytime to see it.”

“Thank you,” Dean mumbled.

“Well, good day, Mr. Winchester,” Crowley tipped his hat.

Dean looked at the gentleman, tried to fashion a smile onto his face, and waved before beating a hasty retreat back into the house.

Not long after Lord Crowley’s visit, when Winchester was awaiting the arrival of its first load of coal from a barge on the towpath, the three gentlemen of the castle returned home.

With them, they brought yet more refugees from the city: families they had rescued from debtor’s prison, men they had rescued from the gallows, and small children they had rescued from the cold streets.

Frost formed on the hay early each morning, but the new houses in Winchester, numerous by then, were warm and toasty.

The town’s citizens benefitted, too, from the clean water in every courtyard and the paving stones along the high street and the sparkling glass panes upon the windows that kept the cold outside. Fortunate as they were, they welcomed the newcomers warmly.

Everyone received a place to sleep and coal to heat and food to eat, no matter if they had a penny to spend or not. Dean had made it clear to the citizens of Winchester that his brother the duke had arranged for their care until they were able to contribute to the town. With Benny and Bobby keeping the peace and Ellen’s daughter Jo and Missouri keeping a watch on the women and omegas of the town, Dean was aware of where aid was required and where able-bodied workers could be hired.

Sam was stunned when he entered the town to see the progress that had been managed since his absence, and Gabriel and Balthazar were thrilled to see their visions brought to life and heartily at work.

The duke was even more stunned to see that the old tavern in the middle of town had been fitted with new windows and a shiny lacquered sign with his coat of arms painted in white and the words Winchester Arms painted in red. Dean took his brother inside to sample the ale that Claire’s mother Jody and her omega Donna brewed in their cottage at the creek that fed into the little lake that lay between the town and the castle.

Bobby was inside the tavern with his own mug of ale and a smile on his face when the young duke arrived, and he grabbed Sam by his collar and hugged him tightly. “You did good, ya idgit,” he muttered into Sam’s shoulder.

Through the windows, the light from the hearth inside Missouri’s shop glowed from her multicolored windowpanes, scattering rainbows across the street stones. On the opposite side of the crossroads, a building of a middling size was under construction, and Dean said it would be a general store.

After finishing his ale, Sam wanted to be shown all around the town, and Lord Balthazar was happy to show the duke the main well and the steam pump while getting a first look at its workings, himself. Moreover, Gabriel observed and described the materials used in building the shops and houses, each with a two-way hearth and none smaller than three rooms! Each courtyard had its fountain of fresh water, an emergency cistern, and a shithouse that disappeared the waste through a gutter conduit that kept the smell at bay. Some houses even had their own attached outhouses!

Everywhere they went, the citizens of the town thanked Sam and offered him cakes and sweetmeats and their eternal vows of fealty.

Sam looked over the nearest man’s head at his brother and mouthed the words he realized he had never said to Dean: “Thank you.”

Dean smiled and pointed out that a dusting of white had begun to color the duke’s hair. Everyone laughed as Sam, confused, tried to brush the flakes away.

The little town had begun to flourish before the first fall snow.

It was a cold morning soon after that in late November when Dean woke to the feeling of something strange in his belly. He pressed his hand against the protrusion he carried around with him now and felt the protrusion press back!

At breakfast he waited for a moment to confide this new discovery with Jessica, but an express arrived from France, and when Ketch held the silver salver at Dean’s shoulder for him to take the brightly sealed envelope, the entire room fell silent. Like one of his little toy automatons, Dean reached out mechanically in a motion slow and forced, to take the unfamiliar paper with its unfamiliar seal and the unfamiliar handwriting. His blood ran cold.

So this was it. His husband was dead.

Dean rose to take the letter somewhere private, but he stumbled before gaining his feet.

Several alphas swooped in to catch him, and he soon found himself in bed with his feet propped up and his sister-in-law holding his hand.

Upon a look from Jessica, Sam shooed everyone else out of the room and closed the door behind himself. The alphas exchanged wary looks in the hallway and hovered until Lady Charlie led them back down the stairs and away from Dean’s door.

“Would you like me to read the letter for you, Dean?” Jess asked kindly.

He could not read it if he wanted to because tears clouded his eyes. He nodded to her, not trusting his voice to answer without breaking.

> _~~22~~ October, Marseilles, France_

“The date is smudged,” Jessica said, holding the paper up to the light.

“Never mind,” Dean murmured, feeling his heart in his throat.

> _Dearest Dean,_
> 
> _I feel I know you well enough to call you Dean because I have just returned from your husband’s side, and that is all he calls you, and you are all he talks of. I am on the boat back to France from visiting my husband, Captain Ion, I think you know him, in the West Indies where he serves with your colonel. We dock in Marseilles, so I think I will post this letter there, and I hope it finds you well._
> 
> _This mission to the West Indies is hardly like the time they spent in France and the lowlands together where, although there were some very nice balls in the evenings, their daily life was filled with mud and gunpowder. In the islands where they are stationed now, everyday seems like a dream filled with warm sun, swimming at white beaches, and the most genial natives to cook their delicacies and prepare their rum drinks for our men. I dare say if the colonel were still a bachelor he would be--_

Jessica paused with her eyebrows high to glance at Dean and regard his reaction to Captain Ion’s wife’s words.

Dean, pulled out of his terror by her idyllic description, studied Jessica’s face curiously, and nodded for her to continue.

> _I dare say if the colonel were still a bachelor he would be in high demand here among the omegas- native and English alike! I’m certain you won’t mind me saying, although I do admire my own husband greatly, that there is not a handsomer soldier in the sun than Colonel Milton. Isn’t it wonderful how gentlemen don’t give a fig that their arms and legs turn brown in the sun? The soldiers spend a great deal of their time out of uniform in their pursuits along the water in the name of staying fit. Ion says that Colonel Milton makes the regiment run in the sand so they don’t tire under too quickly when battles do occasionally come in the hot weather._

Jessica broke in, “She has seen Colonel Milton’s legs?”

Dean grimaced wryly, “I do hope I never meet her, or I will be sorely tempted to scratch her eyes out.”  
Jessica laughed and carried on.

> _Well, I suppose I cannot avoid telling you that the colonel has taken an injury in one such battle. I have met him in the infirmary where his fever is rather dangerous. In a lucid moment, he asked me to write to you and send his love. But I am sure it is nothing, and he will return to you or to his post without much delay. I do hope you and I will meet at an officer’s ball very soon. I have heard your praises sung all month, and I long to make you my friend._
> 
> _Yours truly,_
> 
> _Isabella Ion_

The room was quiet for some time after she finished reading. Dean had closed his eyes, and Jessica thought he might be asleep, but when she rustled her skirts to move them so she could stand, Dean said, “Don’t go.”

They sat quietly together for a while before Dean whispered, in an altogether different voice, “Give me your hand.”

Jessica leaned forward and Dean placed her hand on his belly, and they smiled at each other when she felt the baby kick against her fingers.

“Oh Dean,” she said. “He is very strong!”

When she felt his stomach growl though, she rang the bell and had Kevin bring up some finger foods and tea for them to share.

Dean said, “Will you hand me my letters?” And after Jessica had gathered them together into a small stack, she did as she was bid.

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked.

“Will you, please?”

She smiled, “Of course.”

That day, as a storm blew in and snow painted the view from his window white, Dean finally read his letters from Castiel. The first surveyed his anxiety at leaving Dean, his loathing of travel by sea in the manner of a soldier, and the weariness he felt with the company of his men, already. Dean found himself at turns smiling at Castiel’s descriptions and then weeping at the emotion his husband could express with a pen.

He replied to each letter over the following days of wind, snow, and bitter cold, calling for a new inkpot twice before his mission was finished the next week.

By then, the castle’s children, offspring of the newly hired maids and grooms and other sundry staff, were out building men made of snow who lived in homes made of snow and married omegas made of snow who had babies made of snow that played with dogs made of snow. Dean laughed with them as they eagerly told him all the snow people’s stories, and to their mothers’ chagrin Dean taught them to make snowballs, the ink on his fingertips slowly fading in the ice damp. The Napoleonic Wars lasted until supper when the exhausted and bruised children were called away to eat and find their beds.

Over the following weeks, the children ran daily through the halls of the castle to find Dean again and beg him to be their general. Each day the snow fortresses behind the stables grew grander until midwinter was nearly upon them, and Lady Charlie was helping Dean teach the children to build a catapult from green branches. They were eager to lay siege to the enemy fort, unwittingly manned by three dopey stallions and the sheepdogs that minded them. Thus demonstrating the cruel machines of war, hurling snowballs into a field for the dogs to chase and then run in confused circles when the balls vanished in the snow, Dean was red-cheeked and wrapped in wool when Lord Crowley dropped by again with a purse full of money that made Dean’s eyes widen and his pocket feel so heavy he might fall over.

They met briefly over Dean’s notes about the general store in Winchester. Currently under construction, Dean envisioned it a means of making more than merely staple items available to the town. During their discussion, Crowley did not mention letters from Castiel, and Dean was afraid to ask about it. He had received nothing since the letter from Mrs. Ion in November, and he was afraid that if he found the same was true for Crowley, he would begin to weep in fear for his husband’s life.

So Dean simply thanked the gentleman and offered him a turn at manning the trebuchet. It took hours for the dogs and children to grow bored of the game, and no one mentioned it but the sound of children’s laughter ringing throughout the yard was such a tonic to the household that men and women often took their breaks beside the stables just to hear it.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which Christmas brings great joy to the household and the New Year brings great joy to the town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (mpreg)

### 

On midwinter’s day, exactly six months after Castiel’s departure, Dean made himself busy helping Ellen prepare the castle’s kitchens for the Christmas feast, which would be followed by the New Year’s feast in the town the next week. Charlie was beside herself with preparations for the New Year’s gathering because she had decided it would be the perfect time to unveil her electric lights in Winchester. After months of adjustments and experiments, Dean and Charlie had created a tall pillar that housed a large spring which, upon torqueing with a special crank that only the town’s lamplighter would have, produced a brilliant light for upwards of two hours. There were a dozen such lamps ready to be set in concrete throughout the town, at the intersections of the largest roads and in front of the church. They were to be lit fifteen minutes before sunset every evening in order to give citizens bright streets late enough into the night to allow them to return home from work and shopping safely. The town’s lamplighter, a one-armed man named Walt who used to sell tobacco on Glassblowers Street would earn a shilling a week for the work of cranking the lamps each evening at the specified time, which would be posted monthly in the tavern, as the hour of sunset changed at least that frequently. In all, Walt agreed that it was not bad for a half hour’s walking per day.

Dean did not hide the fact that he was with Ellen, chopping onions and potatoes in order to avoid Charlie who had gone mad with a list of a thousand things that could go wrong with the lighting ceremony. He had left her in Patience’s good hands for the day and was delighted to be in the right place to taste every pie as they were prepared.

Ellen’s daughter Jo, a reclusive alpha who kept a small herd of goats in town and sold their cheese and milk door-to-door, was even on hand to help her mother stir the pudding. Dean delighted in making her blush by asking about which omegas in town she had kissed, until Ellen slapped him with a spoon to make him stop.

On Christmas Eve, Dean was roused before daylight by an unholy scream. Grabbing his torch and wrapping himself in a Turkish woolen robe, a gift from Sam’s honeymoon, against the nip in the air, Dean ran toward the end of the corridor. It was Sam’s room that Gabriel was peering into. The door was thrown open, and the glow of a fire, stoked high in the room’s hearth, shone out into the corridor. The Duchess, Amelia, came out and put her hand on Gabriel’s shoulder to push him away. “Shoo, alpha,” she said, and then Dean could see that Jessica’s sister Daphne was similarly handling Sam and pushing him out of the room.

“What’s going on?” Dean asked.

His brother, deeply troubled and distracted, pulled at his hair and merely said, “Baby.”

At that, Dean rushed into the bedroom, too, and slammed the door on the alphas gathered in the hallway.

Throughout that morning, for once in his life, Dean had no qualms about using the bell-pull. The entire household was run off its feet as Ketch set up a “gentleman’s breakfast” in the golden parlor to get the pesky alphas out of the way, and Ellen and Rowena kept Jessica’s room supplied with hot and cold water, cloths, and strong girls to help fetch and carry.

Jessica named the baby Victoria, after her niece Alexandrina Victoria, who had been born earlier in the year, and Sam added Marie as a second name, after their mother Mary. Little Victoria Marie was a miracle. As Dean held her in his arms for the first time that morning, he did not even try to hide the tears in his eyes. When he gave her back to her mother, he let his hand fall to his own belly and dreamed of his baby who would come after the New Year.

That night, the townspeople marched by candle and torch light from the tavern in the center of town to the little church, singing carols all the way, as a Christmas Eve tradition. Though few of them had lived in Winchester long enough to be privy to traditions, they were all happy to be taught how to celebrate Christmas in the country for the first time. After a service that saw the church and even the churchyard full of prayerful folk thanking baby Jesus for their changes in fortunes, Reverend Jim’s eyes misted up. Everyone took up singing again and caroled all the way to the castle to partake of the Christmas pudding. A dance in the great hall blossomed naturally from the wassail and pudding because everyone wanted to be warm and merry together. Even Princess Jessica, trussed in at least a hundred soft knitted blankets, allowed herself to be carried down into the hall and sat in a corner away from the music with her little bundle. Happy to play their instruments inside the great castle, Max and Rufus fiddled a mix of jigs and carols all the night through, while the townspeople, respectfully slowly, paraded past Jessica over and over again to catch glimpses of the new little life.

Dean brought out a box of gifts for the small children, and an assortment of wind-up wagons that would zoom across the floor, dogs that marched on stiff little legs, squirrels that lifted a nut to their mouths and then let it rest, and angels with real flapping wings amazed the youngest members of the gathering. The party delighted everyone, especially when the noble folk condescended happily to dance with the laborers! Gordon, the man in charge of the steam pump that worked the town’s water well, danced with a royal princess, and even Jo, affectionately known as the goat lady, danced with a duke!

The jolliness and frivolity carried on until dawn when the wagons were lined with saddle blankets to carry everyone the mile and half home again, and the host and Dean, standing in for the hostess of the party, blessed every hand they shook with a real golden half guinea. As they left, some folks cried and all of them thanked the good Lord for the grace that had brought them such fortune after so recently having known such disaster.

Following that, the town of Winchester was utterly giddy on New Year’s Eve at the prospect of receiving its master and mistress and their wonderful friends who had made the town such a gift of a place for them all to live.

One of Jo’s goats had been slaughtered along with a boar and a hart that his grace had allowed the townsfolk to hunt on his estate. The beasts occupied a large hearth fixed with a wood fire and three spits in the center of the town outside of the tavern. Across the way, Missouri’s shop and the new general store that was finally outfitted with a sign looked jolly with their bright windows and fresh paint.

As soon as they lit from their new yellow (golden) phaeton into the town square, Sam and Jess found themselves surrounded by people who longed to thank them for the bounty they felt blessed with under their care. Lady Charlie, too, with Patience on her arm, was inundated with excited people asking questions about the futuristic looking metal poles that had been erected all over town and covered with sheets to hide them. Gabriel and Balthazar were shadowed by the little boys who were used to being called upon to do their bidding around the town on a workday. Even Dean, not nearly so exotic a specimen, having been in and among many of these people all his life and not been made a Duke to confuse them, was hugged and kissed and otherwise smothered by well-wishers who wanted to see him and win his smiles and touch his protruding belly.

It was still quite early in the day when the people from the castle arrived in town, bringing large tables and many chairs in the wagons. There was no place indoors large enough to host the town for its feast, and the stunning lights would be out of doors later anyway, so Benny and a bunch of men busied themselves setting up braziers around the tables to keep everyone warm.

Groups of people singing and playing music tripped in and out of the tavern which kept a table near its fire for the lovely new Madonna of a princess and her Duke‘s party. The ale flowed freely, but the bubbles upset Dean’s stomach so he watered his down and sipped it slowly.

Some time between midday and evening, a wagon pulled up to the barrier created by the brazier and half a dozen or eight large dark-skinned men disembarked. Most newcomers to Winchester were from Glassblowers Street or known by someone already in Winchester, so the sight of strangers quieted the boisterousness of the tavern as all eyes turned toward the window.

Gordon, dark-skinned himself, rose from his seat to make the new men welcome, and Bobby reckoned they could pull in the bench they had placed beside the spit to make more seating in the tavern. Through the window, Dean saw one of the men making his way to the tavern already, and since he was closer to the door than Gordon or anyone else, Dean rose to greet the man. He waved Gordon off before throwing open the door and hurling himself into the bright cold street.

With a shimmering smile, attributable perhaps to his new status as an uncle, or maybe to the good beer he had drunk, Dean greeted the fellow, “Welcome to Winchester!”

“Hello,” said the man in a foreign accent, a tinge of caution hanging from him and absolutely rolling from the wagon of other men behind him. “I require the services of Mister Dean Winchester,” he said.

Dean, stunned at being requested so out of the blue, stood amazed a moment before he could find his tongue, and the man pressed forward, filling the silence.

“I was told to call for him at the castle there, but the boy at the castle said to look for him here, instead.”

“Yes,” Dean said. “Yes, of course. I am Dean Winchester. Wouldn’t you and your friends like to come inside for some refreshment? There is a party today, so we are crowded, but you are welcome.”

“I thank you,” the man said and bowed before lurching forward to grab Dean’s hand in both of his own. He bowed again, deeply pressing his brow down upon Dean’s hand. “I thank you with all my heart, sir. I am Doctor Franklin,” he stated and then turned to motion to his friends.

But on the cobbled high street, a different scene was at that moment unfolding.

Dean watched as Missouri stepped down from her bright threshold with a look of wonder on her face. As her breath escaped her mouth in a cloud of awe, he heard her say, “James?”

One of the men, who had been watching Dean and Dr. Franklin, turned sharply at hearing his name, and in the same moment, he vaulted down from the wagon and fell to his knees in front of Missouri.

From that moment on, there were so many tears and wails that the story was unclear, but Dean left those two to weep and greet one another while he got the rest of the men into the tavern and seated as near to the fire as possible and supplied with mugs of ale to warm them from the inside out.

Taking a moment to stand back and watch the newcomers and ponder Dr. Franklin’s strange greeting, Dean helped himself to a plate of bread pudding handed him by Jo, who was working in the tavern that day. Upon assessing the group around the tables, Dean could see that Dr. Franklin was already becoming friends with Lord Balthazar as he spoke animatedly. Beyond that, Dean could see that Lady Charlie and Patience were not to be found, and he guessed Charlie was still having fits over the lamps.

Walking once around the crowded room, Dean ensured that everyone under his purview was settled, and with his sense of hospitality thus satisfied, he made his way quickly through the bitter cold and across the street. He tapped at Missouri’s door, within which she and the stranger called James had disappeared.

Inside, he found that Missouri and James both had massive smiles on their faces. Dean was ushered to her table while Missouri, who was evidently using her large hearth to bake bread for the evening’s feast, made him a plate of bread and cheese to match the one already in front of James. Though he had just eaten pudding, Dean was constantly hungry and did not protest the snack.

“Dean Winchester,” Missouri said, approaching Dean with her arms spread wide. He received her hug and kiss happily but with a bemused look on his face. “I have you to thank, boy,” she said. “I have you to thank for so much.” She used her apron pocket to wipe her eyes, and Dean patted her back in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

“Dean,” she said after pushing the plate closer to him and falling into a chair by the window, “this is my boy James.”

Dean blinked. He had known Missouri a long time, ever since his family moved to Glassblowers Street, but he didn’t remember anyone named James. However, the framed portraits on the wall behind the new man caused things to fall into place.

“Your boy? James—not your _son_ James?” Dean was agog. “Why, Missouri, you said he went into the army after… after your—It was your husband in the colonial wars, so James must have been in the Indian Wars,” Dean surmised. “In Canada?”

“That’s right,” James replied, still smiling widely.

“Your son,” Dean hummed. “Well, then you’re Patience’s father!” He grew excited.

“You know my little girl?”

Dean was suddenly uncertain how much he should say. Would her father be glad to learn that Patience is mated to a highborn lady? Would he be angry? Parents were a thing that puzzled Dean, not being intimately familiar with them from his own life experience. He settled on answering in the affirmative and waxing on a bit about how lovely she was before expressing a need to return to the tavern and see to the party there, since Dr. Franklin had asked for him by name.

“I’ll let you two get reacquainted,” he said at Missouri’s door. “And if I see Miss Patience, I will send her along.”

Missouri assured him that she and James would be over to the tavern shortly, as soon as the last of the loaves were ready. So Dean left with another hug and a hearty handshake that reminded him of the days before people bowed to him.

“What was that?” Bobby asked as soon as Dean was back in the tavern holding his chilled fingers toward the fire and turning sideways to try to take up less space in the crowded room, even though he was bigger sideways, these days.

“Missouri’s son. James,” he said.

Bobby’s eyebrows vanished on his brow as surprise overtook him. Dean nodded to reaffirm the news he had just shared, and Bobby swallowed down his beer in a swift gulp. “We mourned him,” Bobby whispered. “Had a wake, toasted his name,” he cut himself off and changed tack. “It’s a damn miracle. A damn miracle.”

Dean slapped his old friend on the shoulder and stood with him until chimes of laughter beckoned him to the nearest table.

“Dean Winchester!” Dr. Franklin exclaimed as he pushed the man to his right to make room on the bench for Dean to sit. “You are the man, sir! You are the man! When is that baby due, now? Let me guess. Six weeks? Eight weeks? Where is Colonel Milton, then?” The man’s smile was infectious, even though his questions were somewhat astounding.

Gabriel leaned over the table to help Dean out. “The colonel is in the West Indies,” he said.

The doctor’s eyes grew wide. “In the West Indies, you say? No way is he in the West Indies, man. I just come here from the West Indies, and I made damn sure that colonel got out before I left.”

“What?” Dean asked, suddenly no longer smiling, “What do you mean? You know my husband?”

“Indeed I do, Dean Winchester. Indeed, I do.” Dr. Franklin spread his hands out upon the tabletop and grabbed some crusts of bread and apple cores to set the stage for his tale. “This right here is the beach at Road Town, yes?” he gestured to a chunk of bread. “And this right here is the docks those redcoats were watching, yes?” he gestured to the apple core.

Dean nodded yes each time Dr. Franklin pointed out some geological feature, even though he had no knowledge of the geography whatsoever. A stray bean became a cannon, and a splat of jam became an outpost where the doctor slept and kept his supplies for doctoring the maroons of the island.

“Well this beach was where Colonel Milton liked to swim in the water every morning.”

“How's that?” Dean interrupted, unable to help himself. “How can one swim in the morning? The water must be very cold.”

Dr. Franklin smiled widely, handling the interruption with grace, “Aaah, the water there is always warm, Dean Winchester. The sun there is always hot. And the water is as blue as the eyes on your kind husband’s face.”

Dean’s mouth formed an O, but he remained attuned to Dr. Franklin’s melodic voice.

“It was your husband who sought me out,” he said. “He asked me, ‘You are a doctor, sir?’ And I answered him yes. He asked me ‘You care for these men I see hiding in the tall grass all over there?’ I answered him yes, but I was cautious then. He stood there with his red coat in his hand, and he has a real nice face, your husband. Easy to talk to when he isn’t wearing his red coat. He’s sly, though. He sees me get cautious, your husband, and he bids me good day.

“But the next morning,” Dr. Franklin continued, “there he is again, swimming in the water by my little hut, and he strides out of the water, brown as one of us by then, and he shakes out his hair and smiles at me. ‘Good morning, doctor,’ he says, and I bid him good morning, too. ‘I was running,’ he says, and I ask him who was chasing him. But he laughs at me and says, ‘I find it a beneficial exercise,’” and Dean chuckled at Franklin’s imitation of Castiel.

Encouraged by Dean’s smile, Dr. Franklin continued, “That young man was running on the deer track on the island, and he has sharp blue eyes, that man. He saw my friends that you see around us here. He saw their omegas and their babies. He saw their little huts and their pens of pigs. And why not see them? No one was hiding on the island because the soldiers live at the hotel in Road Town. The soldiers eat in the taverns in Road Town. The soldiers gamble in the gaming houses in Road Town. The soldiers play in the whorehouses in Road Town. Ahh-ahh, Mister Dean Winchester. I do not speak of your colonel, do I? No. Colonel Milton is not in Road Town. He is there on the hills, in the grass, on the beach, in the water, in my humble hut. Colonel Milton is there each day, running to build his strength and swimming for the tranquility it affords him. Colonel Milton is in the shade beside my door to sip my tea and talk about the maroons of the island. Colonel Milton is not stopping us when we scuttle the trade ships. Colonel Milton takes his troops to the docks across the harbor from Road Town on the nights we set fire to the goods piled up on the docks. Colonel Milton bears it when the governor reprimands him and when the newspapers shred his reputation, and for months, he is the most ineffectual soldier to ever lead a regiment on our little island. Every day the traders lose their money and their patience,” Dr. Franklin laughed.

Dean felt uncomfortable, and he exchanged a look with Bobby and with Gabriel across the table. It was Gabriel who spoke next.

“This does not sound like my brother,” he said. “The running and the swimming, yes, but dereliction of duty is beyond the scope of possibility, sir.”

Dr. Franklin nodded. “It is all true, I assure you, Lord Milton.”

“How did you come to be here, sir?” Gabriel demanded.

“Well, that is the part of the story you will like the best,” Dr. Franklin nodded. “After a few months of this strange business, and every morning a cup of tea with the colonel before he put his red coat on, one day he hands me a purse and a letter, written in pretty bad French because I don’t read English very good. I studied in Paris, you know,” Dr. Franklin added as an aside. “His letter says he bought the trade ship Angelica from the traders in the tavern in Road Town who went broke from the mischief we had made on the docks. His letter says we must load up our goats and pigs and chickens and our children and our omegas and sail to England where we will be free, where no more soldiers will chase us, where no more traders will send dogs to hunt us for running away.”

Dean’s brow furrowed. He imagined his face must resemble Bobby’s and Gabriel’s. All of them had caught the drift and understood that this did seem like Castiel, after all. Sabotage himself for the sake of men like Dr. Franklin and James Turner? Yes. Castiel would do this.

“But, I think to myself that the customs man, the coast guard, and the port authority will not simply allow a ship to sail across that blue, blue water. But then I see there is a second page within that letter. He has drawn this map there,” Dr. Franklin points to the tabletop, “and the paper says what time and what place we men were to go. It tells how to fix that cannon so it cannot fire, how to hobble the schooners that chase smugglers’ ships, how to pass the dock man while the soldiers happen to be distracted with chasing the little boys in Road Town who torment their horses, and then, to keep himself from being arrested, it also tells how the men must fight against the soldiers who are not chasing the little boys.” Dr. Franklin nods. “It says how I, personally, must take Colonel Milton’s bayonet and run him through.”

Dean gasped and half stood before realizing that his legs wouldn’t hold him. Sam was suddenly there, propping his brother up, evidently having been listening to the story all along, and Bobby pulled his knife on Dr. Franklin, who looked unconcerned, if slightly surprised, at the vicious eyes now glaring at him.

“You have not been listening,” Dr. Franklin insisted. “The whole plan was there,” he stated calmly, as though nothing was wrong, though by then Dean’s hands were shaking so fiercely he could not lift a beer glass to his own lips and tears clouded his vision. “All there in terrible French,” Dr. Franklin said, “and every detail thought of before I could think of it myself. So I take it to the men and I show them the silver your husband handed to me, and I tell them the plan that is on that paper, and we agree. All for England where every man is free.”

“Gordon, Benny, take this man to the smithy and lock him up,” Sam Winchester ordered, while Dean shook to his boots. Thus, Dr. Franklin was dragged away, chuckling to himself and shaking his head ruefully.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the lady's quest draws to an illuminating close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (mpreg)

### 

Dean insisted that the news of his husband’s death and of Dr. Franklin’s arrest must not be spread any farther that day. He argued with Sam about whether or not it was just to hold Dr. Franklin under arrest at all, since it was Castiel’s choice to sacrifice himself for those men. Sam insisted they could discuss it the next morning, and that a single night in a locked stone room wasn’t going to kill the man.

Thus, the party was slightly muted as sunset approached, and Charlie and Patience finally appeared for the lighting ceremony. As it turned out, they had been in Missouri’s house for the past two hours, discovering James and weeping, and listening to stories and laughing. They were ebullient in front of the streetlight, which was still draped in a sheet at dusk, as everyone crowded around in their heavy coats waiting for the exciting marvel to be revealed. Before that, however, Charlie was using the theatrical stage setting for some business of her own.

With a brilliant smile, she stood before Patience and coughed to get everyone’s attention. “People of Winchester, you have been promised a great marvel tonight, but it is my honor and pleasure to present two great marvels instead of one. Or is it three? Or four?” She smiled as the excited crowd hummed and watched, enraptured by her. “First,” she pulled something from her left coat pocket, “I present to my darling Patience Turner… Moonlight!”

A few confused residents looked toward the graying sky, but most remained focused on Charlie who pressed the button on the special handheld torch she and Dean had made with a thin tin filament and a globe painted to resemble the moon. Patience’s eyes lit up, and the townsfolk pressed close enough to see it clearly “oohed and awed” dramatically.

Lady Charlie handed the moon over to Patience and next pulled something from under her coat. It was a very long pole. “Next, I present to my darling Patience, the sound of summer rain on this cold December afternoon.” Lady Charlie inverted the pole, and the beans inside it rattled down the clay pipe, mimicking precisely the sound of summer rain against a window. Soon the sound was drowned out by the “oohs and ahhs” of the crowd, and Charlie set the pole aside.

She took a moment to bask in the glowing smile on Patience’s lovely face, but then she said, “And last, but not least, to complete my quest of devotion for the lovely lady Patience, I present a kiss, born on the wind to her.”

At this, Charlie signaled for little Jesse the stable boy from the castle, to release a glider made of heavy paper that bore some secret message of love from Charlie to Patience. The crowd held their collective breath as the glider sailed across the cobbled lane and landed at Patience’s feet like a tamed bird. At that moment, Lady Charlie dropped to one knee, lifted the love glider to Patience’s hand and waited with bated breath.

Patience unfolded the paper glider and then looked all around, distressed. “A flame? Has anyone a light?” she laughed, “I cannot read it.

Ever the show-woman, Charlie reached behind her mate for the sheet, tugged it down, and released the pre-cranked mechanism all in a single sweeping motion.

The brightness of the lamp was so absolute that for a moment, no one spoke or moved, or even dared breathe. Patience, however, looked down at the paper in her hand and then squealed, “Yes!” before bouncing up and down until her alpha caught her in a kiss. At that point, everyone cheered, and the children who had been given shillings to unveil the lights all around the town doffed the sheets, released the cranks, and Winchester began to glow.

“We need more coal in the braziers,” Lord Balthazar grumbled as he blew some heat into his fingers.

“Charlie let them burn down a little so their light would spoil her show,” Dean replied, his voice monotone, and his manner subdued.

“Dean, Darling, you should find a table inside the tavern where it’s warmer,” Balthazar suggested. Dean merely nodded and allowed himself to be led inside. Something tugged at his mind about Dr. Franklin’s story, and he could not focus on much else.

Not many people were in the tavern at that point, since the spectacle had pulled them out of doors, and the food was all outside. Dean did not settle by the fire in the tavern next to Jess where she nursed her baby. Instead he excused himself from her company and let himself back out the door to walk up the lane toward the smithy. He wanted to speak to the doctor again, if only to ask why Castiel’s things had not been sent back to Winchester. Where was the silver pin?

“Oh you poor boy,” Dr. Franklin said, when he saw Dean. “You think I killed your man. I know that now.”

Dr. Franklin was on the floor of the smithy, as far from the drafty doorway as it was possible to be. At least there was a fire in the hearth for him, although, eyeing the meager woodpile, it would not last the night.

Dean slid to the floor opposite the older man and stared into the flames. “I shall have some coal brought in for you,” he said.

“Your man is not dead, Dean Winchester,” Dr. Franklin insisted. “Did you forget that I am a doctor?”

Dean let his eyes slide over to regard the man without moving his head at all. The effort to move seemed too much to fathom just then.

“No, dear boy. Your husband had that planned, too.” Dr. Franklin scooted closer. “I ran him through with his own bayonet,” he explained, unhelpfully. “Here,” he knelt up and poked a finger into Dean’s shoulder.”

Dean looked up. A shoulder wound right there might not be fatal, he reasoned.

“Think about that, boy. What does a soldier need his shoulder for, anyway?”

Dean did think. He thought of Castiel fighting in the summer sunlight before their midsummer mating, sparring against Sam with a sword. Then he thought of the shooting contests that Sam, Gabriel, Balthazar, and eventually, reluctantly, Castiel participated in at the edge of the lake late that spring. They used lengths of Charlie’s old ceramic pipes as targets, set up across the vicarage fence, and they would aim for accuracy. Castiel was a very sure shot, rifle butted up against his shoulder, long fingers pulling the cock and the trigger.

“You disabled him,” Dean croaked.

Dr. Franklin nodded.

“But why?”

“Well, that man wanted to be home with you, of course. Why ain’t he here, little omega?”

Dean felt hot tears streak down his face, and he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket. He had embroidered a whole set of them with the C and D monogram he had created for Castiel’s wedding gift. His needlework wasn’t great, but it caught Dr. Franklin’s eye.

“The initials there,” he pointed, “are the same as the pin the colonel always wore on his shirt.”

“I made it for him,” Dean muttered.

“You love each other very much. I see that. That man will come back to you soon, Dean Winchester. You must believe it.”

Eventually Dean left the smithy in search of Benny who would have the key to unchain Dr. Franklin and release him to enjoy a hot meal with everyone else.

Benny was reluctant to do so, so Dean ultimately had to explain it to Sam, which was exhausting. Still, Dr. Franklin was soon with the rest of the party, eating venison and drinking ale and making arrangements to sleep in a warm guest bed for the night.

Dean wanted to leave, wanted his own bed and his own quiet memories of Castiel, but before he found a space on a wagon heading back to the castle, he had one other question for Dr. Franklin.

“Oh Dean! Dean,” Jo called to him, “Dr. Franklin says there are a dozen children, Dean! They came all the way from the West Indies in a ship with dozens of omegas and children, and they’re all in rooms in Spitalfields waiting for a place to live in Winchester! There will be a school, a proper school here, finally!” she thrilled.

“Why, Jo, I’ve never heard you string so many words together in a single speech,” he teased, though his heart wasn’t really in it. He hugged the alpha woman around her shoulders and stepped forward.

“Dr. Franklin,” he said, “I have one more question for you.”

“I am at your service, Dean Winchester.”

“When was it? When did you last see Castiel?”

“Oh, my sad boy, that was the middle of October, I think.”

Dean’s mouth fell open. “That’s impossible,” he argued. “You said he had been swimming that morning.”

“Yes,” Dr. Franklin nodded. “That is true.”

“In October? I don’t believe it.”

“I told you, Dean Winchester. That sun is always bright, and that water is always warm. You can believe he was swimming in October, just as he would be swimming today if he was still there.”

Dean frowned at the flurries of snow that swirled undecidedly through the air and walked away, dissatisfied. In fact, he thought he might eschew a wagon altogether and simply walk himself home, instead.

He was stopped by Ellen at the edge of the lane. “There you are, Dean. I was worried about you. Have you eaten?”

He wasn’t interested in food, but it seemed his baby was because at the mention of eating, Dean suddenly felt unequal to the walk home, after all. He shook his head and allowed Ellen to walk him to a well heated spot beneath a brazier at one of the tables where plates of goat, venison, and boar sat waiting. Dean turned away from the heavy meats and chose a slice of apple pie with thick slices of cheddar cheese instead. Ellen insisted the pie needed cream, as well, and since he was well accustomed to her coddling-cum-fattening him up, Dean sat by while she poured the cream over the top. He admitted it tasted fine, even though it looked unappetizing, to say the least.

After that late dinner, Dean took a spot in a wagon pulled by Baby that was heading back to the castle. Walt had told the wagon driver, Mick, who had spent the afternoon at the castle instead of in the town, that all the lights in the town were lit, so Mick detoured the wagon throughout all of Winchester for everyone to see them. Beside him on the driver’s seat, Ketch held Mick’s hand tightly as they wondered agog at the marvel of electricity. The twitchy draught horse, unaccustomed to the faint ticking whirr that the mechanisms made, was glad to be shut of the town and back on the road to her stables and the hay that awaited her there. Dean imagined that Baby, at least, was hoping for something other than dried hay as a New Year’s treat that night when she got home.

In his bed, that night, the big white bed that he and Castiel had shared but once, Dean lay awake in the darkness thinking of his husband. Eventually he worked the mechanism on his hand torch and read all of his letters again, even the one from Isabella Ion. The stack of replies he had penned sat in a small box on his desk, waiting to be delivered to their owner.

Restless still, his back aching too much for him to find comfort in his bed, Dean stole down the corridor to the nursery. As he knew it would be, the fire burned cheerfully in that room as the nursemaid and Princess Jessica fussed over little Lady Victoria Marie. Dean quietly crept inside, sharing a motherly smile with his sister-in-law as he admired his niece.

Dean touched the infant’s tiny fingers, tiny toes, and feather-soft curls. She gurgled at him, and Dean smiled gently, despite the hot tear that trickled down his cheek.

“He is alive, Dean. Do not be sad. Colonel Milton will be home soon,” she whispered to him, ignoring the nursemaid’s presence.

Dean looked up to her rosy face and lustrous hair. She was the very portrait of health and joy and love. He knew his own appearance was a far cry from the same. His face, of late, had grown thin, even as his belly expanded. Each day he thought there was no possible way he could grow larger, and yet each night some new inconvenience made itself known to him, usually stemming from the size of his ridiculous belly.

“It was a shock to you, wasn’t it?” Jessica pressed. “You were completely stunned when Dr. Franklin told his story.”

Dean nodded slightly, his eyes drifting between mother and babe.

“That’s not how true mates work,” she said. “If he had been killed, Dean, you would have felt it, instantly and brutally. You probably would have lost the baby. Perhaps even lost yourself.”

“That’s a myth, Jess,” Dean ground out.

“So is finding your true mate. So is a boy from Glassblowers Street marrying a princess,” she winked.

Dean smiled tightly and reached forward to rub his finger over the baby’s soft cheek. “He should have been home by Christmas, Jess.”

“A thousand little things will delay a long journey. Trust me, Dean,” she insisted. “At this moment, Castiel is fighting his way back to you and that child.”

As troubled as Dean was over the whereabouts of his husband, work did not stop for him, nor for anyone in Winchester. As he grew less and less able to make excursions and keep up his busy activity, Dean finally took up a project he had been delaying.

With the mail order scheme that Castiel had arranged with Crowley, the people of Winchester were well supplied, but with the expansion to that project that Dean had initiated with Crowley directly, the people had potential to grow. The growth of the town meant there were jobs for everyone, and jobs meant growth for the town. The cycle fed itself delightfully.

Dean knew it would not last forever, but it was the beginning of a good time for the former residents of Glassblowers Street. With flush pocketbooks, and access to Crowley’s store without having to venture into the city, orders were numerous. Dean managed the orders for Winchester, just as Crowley’s butler, Garth, managed them for Crowley’s Corner. Even so, Dean had recognized the need for a better system and he pushed it forward, despite his increasingly sedentary nature.

Not infrequently, people came to him needing something, but not knowing what the something was, exactly. In order to help them, Dean had procured an old inventory from Crowley of available goods and their pieces. Though slightly out of date, the document was helpful, and Dean was in the process of transforming the complicated inventory list into a straightforward and easy to use order list for the residents of the town.

Dean knew that not all of Winchester’s residents could read or write, so he used his meager talent and his pencils to create a sort of catalog in an empty bound ledger book he had discovered amongst his husband’s things. His idea was that the residents could page through the book, perhaps at the tavern or some other easily accessible central place, and they could tell him their orders when they found the item they needed. This idea had the added benefit of allowing them to see things they had no idea they needed or even wanted, too.

Missing his alpha fiercely, but trying not to think about it, Dean spent the cold winter afternoons drawing tins of fruitcakes and tooth powders, baking pans and fancy buttons.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which a traveler suffers many delays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (highly offensive period typical racism and slavery, disgusting racist language, gambling)

### 

The ship was pressed.

After recovering from the infection, which had turned quite dicey for a time, Castiel spent his convalescence in Road Town until the end of the month, waiting for his discharge orders to arrive. When the official document from Command arrived, he was delighted to tell his men that they would all be home for the New Year, if not for Christmas. Despite their eagerness to see their families, many of them grumbled about leaving paradise to return to the cold gloom of England in midwinter. Even so, they boarded their ship in good spirits, Castiel still wearing a sling on his arm and using his walking stick less as a fashion accessory than a necessity. They sailed for New York to continue on there for England where the colonel would be cashiered and relieved of duty.

Unfortunately, the ship was pressed near Bermuda. The Royal Navy took the ship and all of the able bodied men from it for a mission to quell the maroons on Tortola! Wearing his injury literally on his sleeve, and perhaps exaggerating his limp slightly, Castiel was not pressed into the action. The commander let him off the ship at Jamaica where they took on munitions, and he was left to find his own way back to England.

Having gifted his earnings to Dr. Franklin, Castiel had no means of buying his passage, so in Kingstown, he took to gambling. He began with the meager currency of his silver and mother-of-pearl waistcoat buttons, which he removed himself, replacing them with simple shell buttons he picked up for a penny in the market. At that point, he attempted to post letters to Winchester, but it came down to choosing to give his scant coins to the Royal Mail or keeping them to feed himself. He kept the letters in his breast pocket.

Luckily, the weather was warm and pleasant, so Castiel slept on the beach at night. Each morning he submerged himself to remove as much sand from his hair as possible, and then he dressed in his civilian clothes and walked into town to spend the hottest part of the day in a tavern. There, he drank cheap tea and played at dice or cards with other patrons, or sometimes he happened upon a stray scrap of paper and borrowed the publican’s pencil to add lines to his letter for Dean. He survived mostly on tea and fish that November, buying small plates from the street hawkers when he had a coin to spare. Living frugally and cautiously, Castiel slowly built up his funds and saved to buy his passage home.

Eventually, he won a place in a high-stakes game of cards at the Governor’s Christmas party, for which he bartered his red coat to a young lieutenant for half a guinea and the cleaning of his only civilian coat and boots. It was imperative to look his best, so he had not sold his _etui_ of shaving goods. Unpacking the tiny case in the morning sun on the beach, he held the mirror between his knees and shaved with soap and seawater, carefully preserving his sideburns in the fashionable manner he detested.

Looking as sharp as he could get, given the circumstances, and wearing everything he owned, having even sold his pack for tea money by that time, Castiel entered the Governor’s Palace.

Lit by hanging lanterns in every corner, with wax candles in the glass chandeliers, Government House was the very definition of grandeur. The governor, himself, was a distant cousin of Castiel’s and so greeted him with phony condescension and smiles, not-so-secretly delighted in the inequity of their stations. He made a point of commenting on the shabbiness of Castiel’s cuffs and the scuffs on his boots, but even so, he sat Castiel to his right for the supper and engaged him in conversation about the unreasonability of slaves.

“They’re always wanting something, you know, old chap. I have to keep ten girls doing nothing but carrying water to the fields for them to drink on demand, or they simply won’t bring in the sugar,” he complained. “Ten girls to feed and look after, who do absolutely nothing all day! Next, I suppose I shall have to buy ten boys to fan the field hands with palm fronds as they work! Whipping them does no good, you know. They welcome the whip because they will play up the anguish of a single lash and lie in the dirt caterwauling, and then there is no work being done at all, with all the other lazy blighters stopping to stare and scowl. No, we only whip them once a week at most here. And we give them ten water girls. We spoil them, we really do.”

Castiel pushed his spoon through the cold asparagus soup with his wounded arm and bit his tongue. It would do him no good to rail against the governor, or throttle the man, or better yet, whip him before he has had a chance to win his money at the gaming table. No, Cas had to bide his time and then politely take the man’s money at the end of the night. The green tinge of the soup reminded him of Dean’s eyes, and that alone kept him focused on his goal until Lord Zachariah, seated to Castiel’s right, spoke up, too.

“The darkies are always trouble,” he declared, slopping wine down his own chin as he guzzled it. “Here we are trying to civilize this savage land, and the filthy natives act like they were happier wallowing in mud.”

“They are not natives, though, are they my lord?” Castiel interjected. “They were stolen from their homes and brought here to labor, against their will. No matter if they lived in mud or in palaces before, if you take away a man’s opportunity to create his own life, you kill his soul. Is this not why the stories of zombies and fantastical beasts abound here? Soulless men who have no drive for good because their will has been removed.”

Ladies tittered, mistaking Colonel Milton’s cynicism for joviality.

Zachariah cut him off. “On the contrary colonel, we have given them their souls. We teach them about Christ and ask only that they hold themselves to his example, yet they betray us at every turn! Despite the gift of everlasting life we have bestowed upon them, they choose to run from salvation or pray to false idols or laze about in the sun instead of thanking us for showing them the door to heaven.”

Castiel sipped his wine tranqilly. “Would you be grateful for everlasting life if your life consisted of whippings and laboring? Of being torn from your homes and families and put to work in a stony field with your bare hands? I would not want an eternity of that.”

“Oh, do be reasonable, Castiel,” the governor scolded. “We have improved their savage little lives a thousand fold. We feed them, clothe them, house them, and teach them the King’s English.”

“You enslave them. No matter what else you do or do not do, you make them slaves. How can you offer them heaven with one hand and whip them with another? How can a Christian own another Christian? If you teach them, nay, teach your own children, that we are all children under God, how do you explain that?” Castiel held his wine glass to his lips but put it down again without drinking. The wine had already made him talk more than he should.

Lord Zachariah leaned forward in red-faced pique. “It figures you would be an abolitionist, young man. After all, your father--”

“Let’s not discuss the Duke of Winchester, Zachariah,” the governor interrupted.

“Indeed,” Zachariah shifted, leaning back. “Distasteful business, that. Besides, I’m sure we can all agree that putting this land to the use of the Empire, to the benefit of the Kingdom, is what really matters. It’s what God intended when he gifted the Empire to us. From our fields, we feed legions. It is the greatest work, the greatest good I can imagine,” he gestured with his wine glass in effusive acknowledgement of his own largess.

Castiel remained silent, seeing there was no reasonable conclusion to such an argument. Instead, he picked at the sand under his thumbnail until the fish course arrived. Then Castiel picked at that, too. He was eager for the vegetable course that was sure to be served next. He had eaten nothing but fish for so long that he barely remembered what vegetables tasted like.

Later, with a delightfully full stomach, Castiel regarded his cards at the gaming table and moved nothing but his eyes as he scanned the other men’s faces. He had a moderately good hand, and he reckoned it would do to play it to its end, whether to good effect or ill. He won it and used what he had learned of each of his opponents to weigh into his choice with each subsequent gamble. By midnight, he had nearly enough for his passage, though nothing for his housekeeping along the way. He swallowed his watered rum and reminded himself that he must eat and drink all the way across the sea. It would not do for him to return to home and husband as a corpse.

The rum flowed freely at the governor’s table, though, and as the men drank more they also bet more. The last hand could have broken Castiel with the exorbitant one-up-manship of betting that the gamblers had begun to display as the liquor made them sloppy. One more hand like that would put enough onto the table to grant him safe passage and even enough, perhaps, for a clean pillow for the voyage. Unfortunately, a loss on a hand like that could send him back to sleeping on the beach for another month or two, starting his savings from scratch again.

As it turned out, the cards in Castiel’s hand were very good, but so were the cards in Lord Zachariah’s hand. Castiel could tell by the way his littlest finger tap tap tapped against his goblet. The governor was three sheets to the wind by then, and raising the bet ludicrously each time the hand got to him. Castiel watched it play out until the table was down to just the three of them in the game.

He did not have enough to play the final bet.

“Well, colonel. I suppose that’s you out,” the governor delighted. “Of course you’re always welcome here, for as long as you’re in Kingstown.”

“I thank you for your hospitality, Governor,” Castiel replied slowly as he reached into his waistcoat. His fingers fumbled for a moment before he revealed the silver brooch Dean had given him for their wedding. “I wonder if you will accept silver as my bid.”

The governor grabbed for the brooch and fiddled with it a moment before handing it over to Zachariah to examine, too. That man accidentally pressed the clasp that released the self-winding mechanism and caused the little machine to bloom open. The Governor and Zachariah gazed in wonder as the flowers unfolded beneath the initials, and the lock of hair at the center was revealed like a little hidden nest.

“It is a love token,” the Governor said.

“I have never seen its like,” Zachariah praised. “Some sweet little omega waiting for you at home, eh, colonel?” The odious man laughed.

Castiel cleared his throat. “Will it do?” he asked, rather more brusquely than he had intended.

“Quite,” replied the governor, eyeing his cousin. “Quite.”

Now Castiel was gambling with his heart.

Exhaustion overtook the thrill of pounding blood in his veins before the pavement gave way to sand at the edge of the bay. As soon as he hit the beach, Castiel sat heavily on the sand and looked up at the quarter moon with a deep sigh. With trembling fingers, he reached into his pocket to withdraw the silver brooch and fumbled thrice in re-pinning it to the threadbare linen shirt on which it lived. Once it was fastened he lifted his shirt to kiss the pin and think of his husband. A ship for England would depart on Thursday morning, and Castiel would be on it.

In preparation, he finally traded away his precious etui for a tattered great coat to cover himself with when they left the tropical waters and inevitably hit a frostier climate.

The passage was as uncomfortable as Castiel had expected. Without an officer’s cabin, he was relegated to a hammock under the galley, and his sleep in that condition was fitful, at best. Inevitably, a fever broke out among the passengers, and Castiel, naturally hale and uncommonly hardy from his months of island exercise, assisted the ship’s doctor to administer medicines and bleed the sick.

On New Year's Day, the captain fired a cannon into the vast emptiness of the endless sea, as a form of ringing in the New Year, and Castiel used a nub of coal to write his thoughts on a scrap of paper from Dean’s letters that he still carried with him:

> _It strikes me as vain in the extreme that man must make himself known to the world in violence. Why do we fire guns in a salute? Why do we light fires through the dark night? The violence of the guns quells the triumphant symphony of nature. The brightness of the fires diminishes the beauty of the firmament above our heads. Why is it not enough for man’s voice to be the loudest and his prowess to be the strongest on this earth? Why must he also bear down upon his brother, take humanity apart and declare himself better than some other man? Why must he find satisfaction in pressing someone else beneath his thumb?_

He had more to say on the subject but ran out of writing space, so he left it there.

The crossing took six weeks. Near the end of January, the ship finally docked in Bournemouth, and Castiel watched his breath hover in front of his face as he buried his hands in his threadbare pockets. He took some time on the docks to accustom himself again to hearing his native tongue after weeks aboard the Dutch ship. He picked up a piece of canvas caught by a gust of wind and beat the sand out of it as best he could upon a rock and tied it around his cold throat as a makeshift scarf before, hatless and gloveless, he took up a northward road, grateful at the luck of landing so close to Winchester, relatively speaking. He merely had fifty miles or so to travel in order to encounter the river and the towpath that skirted south of the castle.

Castiel had nearly forgotten the early darkness of England in winter. By four in the afternoon, it was too dark to see the road, so Castiel kept his eyes on a faint light in the distance, perhaps the tower window of a way station lit with a jolly lantern or two. He was able to talk his way into sleeping in the stables for the night in exchange for mucking them out in the morning. He chose not to mention his shoulder when making the deal, so desperate was he for a warm pile of hay to sleep in.

As the animals began to stir in the early light, Castiel did what he could to clean the barn and stables left-handed and then went back through and tidied up after himself with his right hand, gritting his teeth through the pain. Dr. Franklin had told him he clipped the tendon and it would be slow to heal. Castiel had discovered that it hurt like a demon in cold weather and grew very stiff, to boot.

After a breakfast of warm milk from the cow he had slept beside, Castiel continued his trek north. That afternoon found him in a similar situation, except he was granted leave to sleep next to the kitchen fire in an inn because a snowstorm was expected. He was allowed to eat the day’s leftover pickles and bread crusts with a cup of very hot, thin tea, for which he was truly grateful.

The next day, he met a hostler named Rufus who knew of Winchester, knew of Bobby Singer, and knew Dean Winchester, too!

“You’re Dean’s alpha, ain't you?” he asked through a suspicious expression.

Castiel finished washing his hands in the icy trough and nodded as he lifted his hands to drink the cold water. “I’m Castiel Milton, sir. Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m no ‘sir’, Castiel Milton. But you come on in the house and I’ll give you some stew. You look like you could use it.”

“Thank you,” Castiel breathed through his shivers as he stumbled after the cantankerous man.

After two bowls of rabbit stew, Castiel was very sleepy in front of the hostler’s fire. He did his best to stay awake to be congenial with Rufus, but his eyes kept closing of their own accord. One of the times he jerked his head up and looked around for Rufus, trying to pull the thread of whatever he had been saying from the back of his mind, Castiel discovered he was quite alone in the room. A bulky crocheted woolen blanket lay atop him where he was stretched out on a cushioned wooden chair. Looking around himself in a daze, Castiel grabbed the blanket and the chair cushion and stretched himself in front of the hearth to sleep the rest of the night.

“I daresay I was very rude last evening,” Castiel said after greeting Rufus good morning and following him out to help tend the animals.

“You were tired, is all. Can’t help that.”

The chickens were delighted to get their corn, no matter if from a stranger’s hand, so Castiel fed them and took the egg basket when it was thrust into his hands. Not knowing the hens’ habits, it took him longer to find the eggs than he imagined Rufus usually took collecting them. Even so, he performed his task diligently, hoping that if he found one more egg, or just one more, perhaps the man would allow one for Castiel to eat for his breakfast.

In the end, Rufus cooked all of the small eggs with a splash of cream from the milk he had managed to coax from his cow and some dried herbs that hung from his kitchen doorway. There was no bread, but there was a spoonful of diced bacon that Rufus crisped in the pan and then stirred up with apricot preserves and dolloped onto the side of Castiel’s plate.

He nearly fainted from delight at the exquisite flavor.

“Well now, I was trying to tell you last night: I’m going up to Crowley Corner to get some supplies I ordered from Garth. I had planned to repair some posts today and do the trip tomorrow, but ain’t no reason I can’t do it today and haul you along in the wagon.”

Castiel’s eyes widened and lit up. “I know Lord Crowley,” he said. “That would be wonderfully kind of you, Rufus.”

Rufus made a clicking noise with his tongue against his teeth and used a piece of onion to scoop his eggs and bacon-preserves into his spoon before shoving the mess into his mouth, onion and all. Castiel took the move as his cue to finish his own breakfast and then clean the dishes in the trough outside.

That afternoon, Castiel entered through the kitchen door of the Crowley manor and was offered hot tea from the servants’ tea service while Rufus picked up mail order supplies from Garth. It was disappointing to learn that Crowley was not at home; in fact he was at Winchester castle, for some party or another.

“What is the date?” Castiel blurted. “I beg your pardon, but I think I know what party you mean.”

“Tis the twenty-fourth, sir.”

Castiel stood abruptly. “I must go. I thank you for the tea,” he bowed to the cook, “and I thank you humbly for the ride,” he bowed very low to Rufus, “but as you must return home before nightfall and you do not have time to drive me further, I really must take my leave of you now.”

With that Castiel bowed once more, to the kitchen, in general, and to Garth, and darted out the back door. He found the old familiar towpath easily despite the covering of snow, and he ambled as quickly as his body would take him west toward Winchester.

When he reached the eastern paddock, Baby saw him and stepped elegantly over the fence to press herself against him on the path. Castiel smiled as she nosed his pockets, and he scratched her neck vigorously. “Hello, beautiful,” he greeted her. “Where’s Dean, eh? Will you take me to the castle?”

She blew a quantity of air and spittle over his shoulder and rubbed her cheek on his makeshift scarf, so he took it as permission to mount, grabbed her mane and jumped for all he was worth. Barely seating himself, he grumbled a little, “Damn you’re tall,” and then squeezed with his knees to steer her toward home.

To his dismay, the castle yard was deserted. If there were a party, Castiel would expect a line of carriages or some activity at the stables or horses milling near the trough. But there was nothing. No one. There was no sign of the duke’s carriage or any horses other than the Italian herd that belonged at Winchester. Castiel allowed Baby to stop a moment and munch on some stray hay beside an outhouse while he dismounted and ran past the kitchen garden and into the door beside the laundry room.

“Halloo the house!” he shouted.

“Welcome home, sir,” said a voice near the stove. Castiel squinted into the heart of the kitchen and saw little Kaia with a dishtowel in her hand. She curtseyed when he looked at her.

“Kaia! How good it is to see you!” Castiel enthused stepping forward. “Where is Dean?”

“I expect he is at the tavern, sir. There was a wedding this morning.”

“A wedding!” Castiel laughed, so happy to know that Dean was safe and celebrating and so very close. “Tavern,” he hummed to himself, spinning in a circle, suddenly feeling so full of energy he could barely focus. “How wonderful! A wedding!” Castiel’s hands went to the top of his head and clasped together there as he looked around the kitchen. “A cake! I see a cake there. Is it a wedding cake?”

“No sir. It’s for the birthday party tonight.”

Throwing his head back to laugh in delighted relief, Castiel let his hands drop to his sides. “The birthday party!” He stood awkwardly a moment, just smiling, and Kaia stayed frozen in place the entire time, smiling awkwardly, too, before Castiel shook himself out of his wonder.

“Well, I should go then. To the tavern?” He reached for the door but stopped, “You do mean in Winchester, don’t you?”

‘Oh, yes sir. The Winchester Arms.”

“Wonderful! That’s wonderful!” he grabbed her shoulders and spun Kaia around before he disappeared out the door. There, Castiel paused a moment to collect a rope halter for Baby from a fencepost, and mounted again to head for the town.

The winter sunlight was feeble, but it was still an hour or so from sunset, so presumably, he had plenty of time to find Dean. Smiling along the track toward Winchester, he was delighted to see how well worn the road was. He was enchanted by the new windows he spotted on the old cottages he passed. He was thrilled by the new buildings and animals that greeted him along the way. Castiel was amazed by the changes that had come over the community in the nearly nine months he had been gone.

When he saw the little chapel with colorful paper flowers littering the snow outside, he laughed, “A wedding!” he said to himself, and he nudged Baby forward.

Here was the commotion he had expected at the castle! At the High Street crossroads, horses and wagons and three sleek little phaetons blocked the cobbled lane in front of the tavern house that boasted a jolly red and white sign that declared it the Winchester Arms.

Castiel swung his right leg over Baby’s ears and slid down from her back before handing her halter lead off to the vaguely familiar looking lad lingering beside the door.

Inside the tavern a joyous din met his ears as the scents of ale and roast meat assaulted his senses. No longer smiling giddily, Castiel was on high alert, scanning the crown with anxious eyes, looking for his mate amidst the throng.

Eyes focused on the tables, fingers twitching with need, heart hammering with anticipation, Castiel heard the sweetest sound:

“Cas?”


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which alpha and omega reunite and take a moment to enjoy life's modern conveniences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (mpreg)

### 

“Cas?”

Despite the beard and the wild mane of hair, despite the tattered clothes and the pronounced limp, Dean would know his mate anywhere.

Castiel turned toward the sound of his name and immediately those blue eyes became Dean’s entire focus.

Both men stood frozen a moment as the sounds of feasting and festivity faded away. Dean stared at Castiel’s face, cataloging the new lines beside his eyes and the unfamiliar brownness of his skin, the hope in his expression, and just as quickly as he had been frozen, his body thawed and then melted into Castiel’s arms. They held each other tightly, then, murmuring each other’s names, and several moments later, as Castiel began to push Dean away, his ears re-accustomed themselves to the din of the room, which had truly faded, by then, after all. Everyone was watching them, quietly whispering to each other, some wondering who the scruffy stranger was, and others watching the reunion unfold with watery eyes.

Dean stiffened upon being pushed away, scowling at the rejection, eyes threatening to spill over, until he felt his alpha’s hands gently cradle his enormous belly. Castiel’s expression of wonder and awe as he looked at his omega for the first time in over eight months was a wonder to behold in its own right. He was transcendent with emotion.

The alpha fell to his knees on the wood planks of the tavern floor, and Dean reached forward to unbutton his frock coat so as to expose his shirt-covered girth to his husband. Dean put his hands gently into Castiel’s greasy, tangled hair and watched the alpha’s eyes fill with tears as he pressed his bearded cheek against the obscene distension.

“Oh, Dean,” was all Castiel could utter, so utter it he did, over and over, until the Duke of Winchester came over and pulled at the overcome alpha’s arm.

“Welcome back, Castiel,” San greeted in a gentle voice.

Castiel glanced at his brother-in-law but then his eyes honed back in on the stomach between his gentle, trembling hands. “Sam, Dean’s pregnant,” he whispered, amazed.

Sam chuckled good-naturedly and shoved the pair of them out the door of the tavern. “Yes, I know,” Sam answered. “Good job, alpha,” he added, patting Castiel’s shoulder as he herded them out toward the general store across the street. “You want to touch your omega right now, but I don’t think the tavern full of people is the best place for that.”

Dean took one of Castiel’s hands to help guide his husband into the empty shop and offered his brother a grateful, if tight, smile when Sam turned to close the window curtain before letting himself back out the door to return to the tavern. The brothers waved to each other from the doorway until Castiel, like a leech, attached himself to his husband again.

Castiel would not face away from Dean, so Dean steered him, walking backward, to the sitting room behind the shop counter, and deposited the alpha onto a sofa.

The fire was banked, so Dean pulled away to feed it back to life, but Castiel, as if attached by a string, was pulled forward by Dean’s withdrawal.

“Be still, alpha. I want you out of these filthy clothes. Let me get the fire hot.”

Castiel sat still, as ordered, his breath shallow and his heart thumping as he watched Dean, who looked achingly familiar from the back, stoke the fire. As soon as Dean turned and approached him again, he was a different man, a surprise, replete with life and vigor, rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, and painfully appetizing, if somewhat pale and slightly gaunt in the face. Castiel stayed still as Dean tugged at his sailcloth neckerchief, and when he finally pulled the stiff, smelly fabric free, he tossed it onto the flames.

Pausing a moment from his task, Dean watched as the salts embedded deep within the canvas burned, creating an aurora of colored light throughout the room.

Then Dean fussed over the chaffing on Castiel’s neck from the rough fabric and proceeded to work at the alpha’s waistcoat buttons. “I’ve never seen buttons like these before,” he mumbled, somehow feeling that to use his full voice might shatter the illusion of having his husband back. The buttons were sharp, so Dean quickly learned to treat them with care but determinedly released Castiel’s shirt from its confines.

There it was. The silver wedding gift Dean had made for his alpha, slightly tarnished, pinned to a threadbare shirt, but still functional, as Dean pressed the mechanism that made it blossom over Castiel’s heart.

“I’m glad you didn’t lose it.”

Castiel blushed and looked askance for a moment but chose to say nothing to that. He just gazed into his husband’s eyes, eventually leaning forward for a kiss.

Dean scooted back from Castiel’s lap where he sat straddled. “I’m sorry, alpha,” he said as he stood, “but you smell appalling.” He pulled Castiel to his feet and dragged the ratty great coat from his shoulders before pulling off the waistcoat, too. He could feel that both garments’ pockets were full, so for the time being he left them on the floor instead of tossing them on the fire, but as soon as he had pulled the linen shirt from Castiel’s frame, with its bloodstain on the shoulder and holes at the elbows, he tossed it in the fire and even took a moment to poke it with the iron rod.

“Take off your boots, Cas,” Dean ordered. “I’m going to heat water.”

Castiel stood up abruptly, “No!”

Dean froze and held his hands up toward his alpha. “Whoa, calm down, Cas. I’m just getting water.”

“No, Dean. Not… Not in your condition.”

Dean rolled his eyes, and compromised by holding out a hand for Castiel to take. “Come with me, then. I’ll show you.”

Castiel took Dean’s hand happily and followed him willingly around a corner into a room that shared the pass-through fireplace with the sitting room they had just vacated. Dean narrated, “This is the washroom,” pointing out a polished wooden tabletop that folded up onto the wall above it to reveal a large copper tub on the floor. The hearth on this side of the room held a kettle as well as a large cauldron, and several flat irons for laundry time. All of the implements were stored in an iron grate in front of the fire so the tools were always hot and ready.

“This is the cistern,” Dean pointed to a rope pull that made a watery noise flow through a ceramic pipe that emptied directly into the cauldron. “Charlie and Gabe designed it for omegas to avoid hauling heavy buckets. Normally hauling water from the fount is no problem,” Dean pointed to the spout in the courtyard right outside the window, “but lately I have been paying some boys to haul the water in for me and fill the cistern every few days.” Dean pulled a second rope, and Castiel heard water flow again. This time, it cascaded cold, directly into the copper tub. “This pull sends water to heat,” he explained, “and this pull runs cold water directly into the tub.”

“Dean, this is ingenious.”

Dean smiled, pleased to have impressed his alpha. “What is this rope?” Castiel tugged a third cable that dangled from the center of the ceiling, and when it clicked, the room filled with bright, white, light. Castiel threw up a hand to shield his eyes but soon blinked and looked around the room. Despite the fact that it was still late afternoon, the room had been dim before, but now it was as bright as the beach at Road Town.

“Look at you, alpha,” Dean breathed, running a hand over his shirtless husband’s torso. “Your skin is brown,” he marveled. When his fingers found the new scar on Castiel’s shoulder, he traced the marred skin delicately. “Dr. Franklin told me about this,” he said. “Did it hurt terribly?”

Castiel tilted his head to the right, taking a moment to reconcile the clashing of his two worlds. “You know Dr. Franklin?” he asked stupidly.

“You sent him here, didn’t you?”

“I—yes, of course. I suppose I always thought I would arrive back here before him and the other men. Did they all make it?”

Dean nodded, still half distracted by the naked flesh beneath his hands. “Most of them.”

It came then to Castiel’s attention that his husband was overdressed. Reaching out for the sapphire pin at Dean’s throat, he began to unwind the thick winter cravat.

“This is your bath, not mine.”

Castiel nodded. “I just want to see,” he explained.

Dean sighed and slapped Castiel’s hands away before pulling the tabletop back down over the tub. He patted it with one hand in invitation for Castiel to sit there. “You, sit. Take off those boots while the water is heating. I’ll let you look at my hideous belly all you want once you’re in the water.”

Once the alpha was diligently working on the bootlaces, Dean disappeared for a moment, calling from the stairs, “I’ll be right back, alpha. Check the water temperature.”

Castiel got rid of his boots and breeches, socks and pants, just as the water began to steam. He decanted a pan full of it into the tub and then put the pan over the top of the cauldron to get it hotter faster.

He heard footsteps above his head and looked around the room a bit more. There was a cupboard with soap flakes and tooth powder and all manner of household items he did not recognize. He briefly opened a small casement window at the end of the room and stuck his head outside, which he discovered was not outside at all, actually, but a little semi-attached outhouse fitted with a painted commode seat!

He shut that window and pressed his face against the glass panes on the door, from which he could see the courtyard beyond a small garden. It looked as though every single house had its own private semi-attached outhouse and garden! The fountain at the center of the courtyard had spouts all around it, affording water access to several people at once, and eliminating the inevitable summer squabbles over water. Gabriel and Balthazar had really created something marvelous here.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs grew closer, and suddenly, Castiel’s omega was in the room with his arms holding a towel, a bar of French soap, and hair oil.

“That’s boiling,” Dean scolded. Castiel looked toward the steam rolling out from under the pan he had placed atop the cauldron and nodded, moving to decant the water quickly into the tub.

“Whose house is this?” he asked as he threw a leg over the side of the tub and touched the slightly-too-hot water with a timid toe.

“Did you make it too hot?” Dean asked, before giving the rope a gentle tug to allow the cistern to trickle a thin stream of cold water in to temper the bath.

“Whose house is this, Dean?”

“It’s ours, alpha.”

Castiel slid down into the steaming bath with wide eyes, taking in all the features anew. “Ours?”

“Don’t you like it?”

In response, Castiel pulled Dean in by the collar of his shirt and kissed him soundly.

Once kissed, however, Dean utterly dissolved into hunger for his mate, and the kissing instantly turned voracious. After several moments, Castiel pressed a hand against Dean’s chest. “It’s wonderful,” he murmured around Dean still kissing him. “But I thought you’d want to stay with Sam.”

“This is better,” Dean mumbled against his mate’s mouth. “It’s ours. I missed you, Cas.”

“Wait,” the alpha said. “Wait. I need you, Dean. I need you.”

Dean agreed and dove back in for his alpha’s mouth, only to find himself fended off.

“Wait, Dean, sweetheart, please. I can’t knot you in this tub, sweet omega. Let me get clean. I see you brought a razor, too. Take off your shirt. I need to see you.”

Dean huffed but did as he was told, but not before dumping a generous amount of hair oil over Castiel’s head. “Scrub yourself, alpha,” he insisted, as he squirmed out of his shirt.

Thus, Castiel was half blinded by his own sudsy hair when he caught his first glimpse of the gift he had imparted to his husband.

Castiel shook his hair out of his eyes and then used his soapy finger to remove Dean’s hands from his belly where they rested, evidently to hide angry red stretch marks on his skin.

“Oh, Dean,” he breathed.

Dean’s hands instantly returned to shield his belly, and he would hardly be coaxed to let the alpha look again. But Castiel’s warm, slick hands danced over Dean’s girth, knocking the embarrassed omega’s fingers away and sliding around to memorize the contours of his own vainglory.

When the baby moved beneath his alpha’s hands for the first time, Dean’s breath caught in his throat and he stopped trying to hide. He took Castiel’s wrist and placed the big strong fingers directly over the activity and locked eyes with Castiel as the alpha felt it.

Those too blue eyes filled with tears and that beatific look of awe returned to his face. The man leaned forward, the hard edge of the copper tub digging into his chest, and placed his face against his baby, just as he had done in those first moments in the tavern.

“Dean, you are amazing.”

“I’m fat.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“I’m preposterously large.”

“I love you. So much. So, so much.”

“I love you too, alpha.”

The bath water was cool by the time Castiel had worshiped Dean’s exquisite body, washed himself, sat for Dean to cut his hair, and shaved away his beard and moustache.

Dean wrapped a towel around his husband and, both of them shirtless. began to push Castiel out of the washroom. The alpha stalled at the doorway, though.

“Wait Dean, let me bail this tub for you.”

Dean sighed. “If you tell me once more to wait, I will cut off your cock and take it upstairs without you.”

Castiel blinked and his knees tapped together as he stared at Dean’s irritated brow.

“I— the water?” the alpha stumbled.

Dean sighed heavily, bent down awkwardly, and turned a small spout at the bottom of the tub. Castiel saw that the level of murky water in the tub lowered swiftly, but the floor remained dry.

“Where does it go?” he asked, entranced once again by the workings of the house.

Dean traced a line with his toe along the tiled floor. “There is a ceramic pipe here that carries the water out to here.” He kicked the wall that backed up to the outhouse.

“You mean it just drains away?” Castiel asked breathily.

“Do you want to knot me in the washroom after all, alpha?”

Seeing his omega’s raised eyebrow and pursed lips, Castiel shook himself out of his contemplation of drains and followed his omega toward the stairs on the other side of the sitting room and up to the bedroom over the general store.

If Dean was slightly late to his own birthday party that evening, no one could blame him. He had insisted on it being a small affair at the castle, and the dogcart that Dean had taken to driving around when he was banned from riding Baby because of his “condition,” was the last conveyance to arrive at the castle, if the state of the stable boys was anything to judge by.

Castiel, looking like his old self again in his blue tailcoat and a decadently white cravat, proudly clung to his omega’s arm as Ketch greeted him and walked away to announce their arrival.

Everyone cheered, doubly loudly when the couple entered the music parlor outside of the dining room. Castiel was dazzled by the electric lamps in all the previously dark corners of the room, unaccustomed to seeing everyone so clearly at a nighttime gathering. The lacquered piano glistened, and the elegant embroideries on the upholstered chairs shone with a preternatural light.

His family crowded him as everyone rushed to make him welcome with smiles and handshakes and touches on the shoulder. Meanwhile Castiel did not release his husband’s hand nor stray an inch from his side.

When Ketch announced dinner, the gathered crowd regained a modicum of decorum in taking their places. Of course everyone peppered Castiel with questions over the meal.

“How did you come to serve so short a term?”

“Why haven’t you written lately?”

“Your skin is so dark, you look like a heathen!”

“Is it true that pineapples grow wild there?”

“Is it true you freed a colony of slaves and bought them a ship to escape on?”

After a few moments of this, Castiel cleared his throat and held a hand aloft. “I assure you that you will hear all the stories. But I have a thousand questions, as well. Tit for tat, perhaps?

So it was decided that each person would exchange a story with Castiel for one about his time abroad.

Sam began by explaining his time in the capital. He described parliament, his famous speech about the rights of the poor that got written up in the _Times_ , and the coalition of Whigs that had gained substantial power in the government to curtail the regent’s dubious trade deals and unscrupulous cronyism.

Castiel replied with a description of the traders who did business directly with said cronies, taking “labor” from Africa and delivering it to the West Indies in exchange for sugar and other high-demand goods that England’s new economy craved. The gentlemen discussed the inherent detriment this kind of trade posed to the ideals of England and the eventual downfall of the Empire that such trade heralded. Dean remarked that people would do anything for money, once they have a taste for it.

Balthazar told Castiel about the burning of Glassblowers Street and the relocation of many of its former tenants to Winchester.

Castiel described the formulation of his plan for the maroons on the island, runaways from the traders who had eked out a life for themselves in the wilderness. Many of them, he said, had once been free men from England or Canada who were taken into bondage once they hit southern waters on their ways back home merely by virtue of having dark skin. That was the fate of Dr. Franklin, he explained, who had studied medicine in Paris and traveled with a missionary family to tend to the medical needs of plantation workers. He had been arrested as an abolitionist spy but allowed a semblance of “freedom” on the island because no white doctors would care for the slaves, and at the end of the day, it was cheaper for the slavers to keep a worker alive than to buy a replacement.

Gabriel talked about the building efforts in Winchester and the steam pump and the lights and the outhouses. He was thrilled that Castiel had been able to see some of the innovations at work inside the general store, and for his part, Castiel was effusive in his praise of them. When Gabriel mentioned that Dean had come up with the idea to place Archimedes screws in strategic locations to pump water directly into each house’s washroom (bypassing the need to haul buckets of water to the cisterns) and that once the ground thawed they intended to test the idea on Dean Street in town, the alpha’s grip on his husband’s hand grew ever-so-much warmer and tighter than before.

Castiel, in turn, described how he formulated the plan for a skirmish on the beach to distract the guard while the islanders loaded their omegas, children, and animals onto the ship. He and Dr. Franklin would fight, Castiel allowing the doctor to gain the upper hand and strike him with his own bayonet. Unfortunately, before the maroons could disable the cannon, Castiel caught some shrapnel in his knee, but the injury was minor. At least it was until he was treated for the wound in his shoulder and the relatively minor leg wound was ignored for the much flashier and bloodier wound. The leg got infected, and he suspected there was still some metal in his knee.

Dean told Cas about Charlie and Patience and the wedding that morning. He described the house at the top of the hill in town that Charlie was building for them with an electric windmill to turn the breeze into lighting for the whole house. Then he mentioned the general store that he held in partnership with Lord Crowley. It served as a branch of Crowley’s famous shop in the capital and not only imported goods to the town but also used the same wagons that brought the goods in to export Winchester-made glass, iron, and clockworks to the capital to sell. As soon as the railway to Crowley Corner was complete, the artisans of Winchester stood to make enough of a living to easily pay their rents to the duke, their taxes to the regent, and to live comfortably on a tidy income as well.

Finally, Castiel gave a very brief overview of the press-gang that had stopped his return voyage to England. He described spending the past months in Jamaica “working” (he equivocated) to earn a fare home.

Over dessert, everyone repeated how glad they were to have him back, and Sam toasted his brother’s birthday. Everyone drank to Dean and wished him many more years.

Dean then toasted his husband, saying that he felt better than he had in months, just having his whole family back together again. The wine glasses were raised and emptied, and Castiel yawned spectacularly.

Jessica took that as a cue to drag Castiel to the nursery to meet his niece so he could retire for the night directly after.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which the world welcomes a new Winchester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: (mpreg, birth)

### 

On that first night that Castiel was home again, the reunited couple slept over in their old room in the castle for convenience’s sake. It was bliss simply to bask in family (and because Castiel was so smitten with baby Victoria that he fell asleep holding her), but at the end of the following day they officially moved into their house at the Winchester general store.

Dean delighted in showing Cas the conveniences he had made, especially for them, not limited to the foldaway worktable in the washroom that fit over the bathtub as a place to iron linens or, Dean suggested, clean a baby. He had also designed a wind-up fan to ventilate the kitchen on a warm summer’s day and an extendable chimney brush that lengthened and shortened with a reel so he could sweep the chimney even with his fat belly.

“You aren’t fat.”

“I’m a whale.”

“I actually saw some whales quite recently, and I assure you that you are not a whale,” Castiel rejoined before placing his hands on either side of said belly and then kissing his husband’s face.

Dean and Castiel delighted in their thoroughly modernized kitchen with a hand pump, root cellar, and cast iron oven.

Cas showed Dean how to make proper coffee and a bean and pepper stew that he had quite enjoyed on Tortola. Dean thoroughly enjoyed the peppers and taught Cas how to knead dough properly for breads and pastries.

The husbands spent every moment together, making memories to think back upon once the child was born and their time together was inevitably cut short by familial duties of other kinds. Frequently, they lay awake together late into the nights while Castiel rubbed his poor husband’s aching back, and they spoke of the myriad things they had to do once winter took its leave.

“I shall become very busy on the estate,” Castiel mused. “The town easily has enough residents now that we can sow all the fields north of the river road this year.”

Dean groaned in relief as his back began to relax, “But everybody’s from the city. None of Winchester’s residents knows how to sow or plant or weed or reap.”

“That’s not true. Everyone from Tortola worked the fields there. They are experts, green thumbs on every one of them. I’m going to offer each of them to be a field boss for three shillings a week to start. They can teach and manage the rest of the hands.”

“Will they do it? Is three shillings enough?”

“I recall you once telling me that if I provided you an allowance of one shilling a week you’d think yourself so rich you would not know what to do.”

Dean chuckled. “If Walt gets a shilling a week for cranking the lamps, then I think your field managers can get a shilling a day and rotating days off,” he insisted.

Castiel kissed the back of his neck. “You have become an impressive businessman in my absence, omega. I shall adjust my projections for Sam before I meet with him about it. Five shillings a week for field bosses.”

Feeling better, Dean heaved and rolled himself until he was face to face with his husband, or belly to belly as the case was. “You’re the one who made this town, Cas. Everything you see now is something you put in motion before you left.”

“Not true, Dean. Look at the innovations here. They’re all well beyond my imagination.” He kissed his husband’s nose. “I saw your catalog, you know. You weren’t even going to tell me about it, were you? It’s ingenious. And your drawings of your little clockwork walnuts and wind-up doggies for sale in the back of the book. ‘Whimsical Walnut. Dancing Dog.’ You are not asking enough for them. Charge a shilling each.”

Dean scoffed at that and deflected attention away from himself. “You did it, alpha. You made the deal with Crowley in the first place, and then he showed up to hand me money. I started paying more attention then, learning about the mail-order idea. I spoke to him a few times, and as more and more people moved into the town to stay, I knew they needed goods. So Crowley gave me an inventory for his stores in the capital with prices and everything. I pinned a bill to the tavern door advertising the opportunity to hear me speak about ordering goods and supplies on a Tuesday evening, and practically the whole town showed up. The tavern took in over two pounds that evening. We had to do the same thing twice more so more interested people could attend.”

Castiel listened in rapt attention, his blue eyes flickering with candlelight and love. (The electric lights were too harsh for pillow talk.)

Dean continued, “It turned out that everyone needed something, and since most of the town was working for Gabe or Bal or Sam by then, they could afford it, even with paying the Royal Mail to deliver.

“But then, I spoke to Crowley about that. I reckoned that, in the end, we could deliver the items cheaper ourselves by hiring one or two of the men to transport them in our own wagons. Keep costs down for our tenants that way.”

“Dean, that’s wonderful.”

“It gets better. Whatever you said to Crowley about railroads, he bought into the scheme, too, and he told the builders that he would erect a depot at Crowley Corner if they would run their rail out this way.”

Castiel’s eyes went wide, “That’s incredible! When will it happen?”

“By summer, I think he said. But Crowley also says not to bank on it because these things are always delayed.”

“Smart man.”

“In the meantime, we hired the cooper in town to build some sturdy wagon boxes--”

“--We have a cooper in town, now?”

“Of course we do, alpha. So we have some box wagons with ‘WCM Shipping’ painted on them in bright blue enamel.”

“WCM?”

“Winchester-Crowley-Milton.”

“Winches-- We have a shipping company? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, it slipped my mind because I wrote all this down for you. Anyway, I’m telling you now. Crowley says that once the railway comes in, the wagons won’t have to make the trek all the way to the capital anymore because the steam engines will do most of that work. Instead, there will be a few back-and-forth trips each day between here and Crowley Corner, and the best part is that we can easily convert one of the box wagons to an omnibus so that if folks from Winchester need to go to the capital, they have a conveyance from here to the railway depot!”

Castiel flopped over and lay flat on his back a moment with wide eyes contemplating the deep shadows on their ceiling, and Dean used the moment of distance between them to reach into the drawer at his bedside and withdraw a stack of papers.

“I wrote to you, Cas,” he said gently.

Castiel looked over at his husband, taking in the tied bundle of letters in Dean’s hand. He took them carefully, surprised at the thickness of the stack and leaned away toward the candle to read the words on the top sheaf: “To my dearest husband.”

“You didn’t send them?” Cas asked.

Dean only shook his head and rolled back over to face Cas again. “I explained it. In the letters.”

Castiel nodded and then set the papers on his table to read in the next day’s light.

For the moment, he rolled onto his side to mirror Dean, and lifted his hand to kiss it.

“Dean, you did all of this. A shipping company, taking care of the townspeople, making a home for us.” He scooted closer to Dean again and reached out to touch the omega’s face. “You’re a marvel. Every day for the rest of my life I will attempt to make you know how much I cherish and adore you, how much I respect and admire you. All of this, Dean,” he whispered and then slid his hand down to his mate’s stomach. “And this, too.” He kissed Dean, then, at a loss for words to express his sentiment. “I don’t deserve you, my love.”

“Don’t start that nonsense again, alpha. Put your hand over here. This baby likes the sound of your voice.”

They fell asleep like that, plastered together on their bed while the candle guttered and burned itself out, both of them more in love than they could express and happier than they had ever dreamed they could be.

February’s weather turned, somehow, colder. The river half froze and the tow barge that brought in the coal couldn’t make the trip. Castiel arranged for the WCM Shipping company, which, he had found out from Crowley, was legitimately registered with a legal contract and holding account with Lloyd’s, to haul coal for the town of Winchester. Since this arrangement interrupted regular shipments of dry goods that normally relied upon the WCM wagons and represented a vast proportion of the food that most of Winchester ate, Sam had his gamesmen supply meat and his pantry supply wheat and vegetables so that his lately expanded kitchen staff could bake hundreds of pies to distribute to the townsfolk. These pied were hauled, still hot, on the castle’s lumber carts to the tavern in town for everyone to eat. These dinners turned into lively affairs. Gabriel bought a cask of the publican’s ale for the first gathering, and then each of the gentlemen took turns doing the same every night after.

For his part, Dean was barely able to waddle across the road from the general store where he spent most of his time with the few shelves of staples and the WCM Catalog available for townsfolk to peruse. Lately he had not even bothered to pass through the curtain from his sitting room to the store front, relying on the glass bell on the shop door to alert him of customers. Instead, he stayed wrapped in a blanket with his feet propped up tinkering with a new toy design he could sell. But by the end of the day his ennui got the better of him and he could not be dissuaded from joining the dinners at the tavern.

Every evening, Dean and Castiel ate with someone different.

Sir Rafael had returned to Winchester to visit with Castiel and review and revise the projected earnings that Castiel had figured for the coming year. Together, they calculated figures for an infinite number of possibilities.

Dean had sat rapt listening to them talk at Castiel’s little desk at the front window of their sitting room: What if there is a draught? What if there is too much rain? What if the field hands get sick? What if there is a fire? What if there is blight? What if the animals die? What if Winchester grows beyond its current means? And on and on.

Between them, the previous spring, they had filled half of a great ledger book with their numbers, and on the ninth of February, they finished filling the rest of it it: hundreds of pages of information about the people of Winchester, the houses there, the costs of labor and sundry goods. Dean spent a great deal of his immobile hours thumbing through it. Apparently, his brother was a very rich man.

When they shared a supper with Sir Rafael in the tavern, Dean tormented them by asking, “What if it’s an exceptional growing season, and we cannot bring in all the harvest because the peas are just too heavy? Or what if the carrots are so large that when we pull them up, they take days to pull because their roots go all the way to India?”

Castiel’s eyes twinkled merrily at Dean’s jests, but Sir Rafael seemed torn between politeness and annoyance. Dean enjoyed irritating the man; he had grown fonder of him, of late, than he had been last year.

Dean did wonder, however, when his husband saw Sir Rafael on his way back to the capital to attend his business, what Castiel had meant when he told the man to, “Let me know about the name!”

He stopped wondering about it when Castiel put his arm around Dean’s waist, such as it was, and kissed his ear before pulling him in out of the cold and pushing him across the cobbled street to their store.

Watching his husband disrobe in the firelight, Dean realized it had nearly been a year since he had first seen Castiel at Sam’s March wedding. Remembering this, Dean spent the rest of the night staring at his husband and blessing his luck, even as he used his mouth to show Castiel his love.

Some days later, they sat at the tavern with Dr. Franklin and James Turner.

“Where’s Missouri this evening,” Castiel asked, after greeting James.

“Oh, she said she’s tired of this game pie and she’s got important knitting to do.”

“Important knitting?” Dean asked. “Since when is knitting important? Your mother has a lovely shawl already.”

“She’s not knitting a shawl, this time,” James smiled, but he supplied nothing more.

Castiel talked of a place called Road Town and whether some of the people he had met there had plans to join them in Winchester, as far as Dr. Franklin knew. The omegas and children remained at a rooming house in London until the roads thawed some for travel, but neither James nor Dr. Franklin had received their definite plans yet. Once it was mentioned, Castiel said the delay was no surprise, given the season, but he expressed his opinion that they must come by the end of March, if that was what they were waiting for.

“Why are you pushing that food around on your plate omega?” Dr. Franklin addressed Dean.

Dean looked up in surprise, not having really realized what he was doing. “I’m not very hungry, I suppose.”

“Not hungry!” Dr. Franklin threw up his hands. Always prone to dramatic hyperbole, no one paid much attention to the doctor when he threw hysterics. “Why aren’t you hungry, boy? What did you eat today?”

Dean thought about it. “I had some apple jelly with one of those tea cakes you liked when you were over. And… Oh, I had apple jelly again later. Just a spoon of it without the teacake. I had some milk toast and…. well, this.”

“This. You didn’t eat this at all, child. You should be eating more than some tea cake and apple jelly.” He rounded on Castiel, “You don’t take care of your omega, Colonel Milton? I expected better from you!”

Castiel’s face transformed from concern at discovering Dean had no appetite to wide-eyed guilt at having not been aware of it sooner. “I… I should have,” he stuttered, shamefaced. “Dean, I’m so sorry.”

Dean rolled his eyes and sighed. He tuned the alphas out and nibbled on a bread roll, wondering if the tavern had some of the estate’s apple jelly to put on it. In the end, there was apple cake for dessert, and Dean ate some of that with cream, but not enough to satisfy his alpha at that point. Castiel was threatening to have Ellen pluck a chicken the following day, just for Dean.

“I don’t want chicken, Cas. I’m sleepy.”

On that pronouncement, Castiel swiftly bid everyone good evening and practically carried Dean to bed.

Dean slept through the morning, only stirring to use the chamber pot, which he had taken to keeping in the bedroom, since getting down the stairs to the outhouse was exhausting these days.

The day was bleak and cold with February snow falling steadily from heavy, slate gray clouds. It was disorienting to be without the sun, but soon enough, Dean had to pry himself out of bed because he felt like some tea. Besides, the chamber pot wasn’t going to empty itself.

So he was in the kitchen when his water broke.

He yelled in surprise when it happened, wholly unexpecting the rush of wet and cramping. He had grown accustomed to his body’s constant aching of late. Various pains assaulted him at all hours. So he had ignored the pains the night before and that morning. Suddenly the pain was too sharp to ignore.

“What is it, Dean? I heard you yell,” Castiel strolled into the kitchen with his eyes on some ledger. The pencil in his hand gave it away.

“Cas,” Dean said, and something in his tone made his husband look up sharply.

Castiel took in the state of the room-- wet floor, boiling kettle, startled husband-- and he dropped his paper and pencil on the pantry shelf and, grabbing him by the arm, guided Dean into a chair.

“I don’t want to sit,” Dean whined, sitting. “It’s disgusting.”

“What do you need, Dean? The midwife. You need the midwife. Or a doctor. You need a doctor. I’ll send a boy for Dr. Franklin.”

“Alpha,” Dean snapped to get his husband’s attention. “Calm down. Send a boy to find Bobby. He’s probably at the forge with Benny, and one of them can take the rig to get Rowena.

“Rowena,” Castiel repeated. “Right. I remember now.” He kissed Dean’s forehead and disappeared.

Mission accomplished Castiel returned and stood in front of his husband, staring at him as if he might explode.

Dean said, “Next, take that piece of paper and pencil you put on the pantry shelf back to your desk before it’s misplaced and you make yourself mad tomorrow trying to find it.”

Castiel followed orders well; Dean had to hand that to him.

“Now, I really would like some tea.”

Castiel made tea for Dean while they waited for Rowena. The pain Dean experienced grew worse each time it crashed upon him, but still the waves were distant enough that he managed drinking some honeyed tea, eating a few spoons of apple jelly, and ordering Castiel around so he wouldn’t hover. He sent Castiel for his clean nightdress while he stripped out of his uncomfortable breeches. Once changed, Dean was more comfortable, less self-conscious, and gripped by the desire to clean the kitchen.

When Rowena arrived, she did not come alone.

The entire castle, it seemed, was suddenly in Dean’s sitting room as he dragged a cloth around his kitchen floor with his foot, horrified at the thought of the others seeing the mess.

Rowena put a stop to his efforts and ordered Castiel to move the omega upstairs. When Cas bent to pick Dean up, he squeaked, “Don’t you dare! Just walk behind me on the staircase, alpha.”

With the parents-to-be out of the way, Rowena ordered everyone else to be useful. Jessica and Sam were set to making quantities of strong tea. Gabriel was sent across the lane to borrow an extra teapot from Missouri. Balthazar was told to make sure the washroom fire was well stoked and the cauldron full and set to boil. He sent a boy to fill the cistern once the cauldron was full.

Once everyone was occupied, Rowena made one pot of her own herbal tea and took it up the stairs. After a few moments, Castiel reappeared in the kitchen and told Jessica he had been booted out in favor of her. So the princess dashed up to assist with the birth.

After a few hours of anxious waiting with Missouri having brought the tea service herself with a large plate of ginger cookies, and during which time she let herself into the upstairs bedroom with a new knitted white christening blanket in her arms, Sam and Castiel decided that whiskey was required. Gabriel, happy to help, fetched several bottles from the tavern, and the gentlemen took up the sitting room getting drunk.

Castiel was beginning to doze when a great quantity of yelling tumbled down the stairs. He began to ascend but was bombarded on the stairway by Jessica’s pale form.

“Send for Dr. Franklin,” she whispered harshly before sitting on the stair and wringing her hands in her skirt. Castiel tried to get past her, but the stairwell was too narrow, and Sam held him from behind. Frantically, he turned to go out the door and find the doctor, but Balthazar was at the door.

“Gabriel sent three boys out. They will find him.” For the first time all day, Castiel looked out the window and noticed that it was snowing very hard, the street lamp in the crossroads had been lit, and it created an ethereal white glow behind the driving snow.

“What time is it?” he asked.

Balthazar checked his timepiece as Sam and Gabriel steered him to a chair. “Ten til five,” he replied.

The doctor came and called for more tea and more boiling water and a bottle of whiskey and plenty of rags. Missouri went downstairs to tell the men to get the muslin bandages she had washed and ironed the week before from her shop, and Gabriel went out into the white night to get them.

Later, when Rowena eventually came down the stairs, hair mussed and face pale but smiling, all eyes turned to her. “Go upstairs, Castiel,” she said.

He dashed.

Sam gave Rowena his chair and offered her some tea. Jessica, suddenly realizing she had eaten nothing all day, said Rowena looked like she needed food, and Balthazar dashed out to the tavern to get whatever food they had left from dinner.

No one asked out loud but everyone demanded with their eyes and attention, so she caved and told them, “It’s a boy.”

Everyone was glad, of course, but Sam wanted to know if Dean was all right. He was about to ask when Dr. Franklin came down the stairs, his eyes as bright and cheerful as ever.

“That is a happy family,” he said before donning his hat and disappearing out into the night.


	25. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which everyone lives happily ever after

### 

  
  


W-C Shipping became an enormous success. They dropped the M from the original moniker when Castiel took the name Winchester to match his husband and son. Their massive warehouse adjacent to the docks at Bournemouth and their rail cars were painted with their blue logo, and their unique W-C Country Catalogue could be found in towns and villages wherever the railway ventured, making modern living available to even the remotest households. The business prospered even as the town of Winchester and the great estate of Winchester became wealthy beyond even Sir Rafael’s projections.

Uncomfortable with such personal gain while others still suffered, Dean and Castiel quietly took their quarterly profit payments from Lord Crowley and used them to fund the abolition efforts on Tortola. They were delighted to continue the funding even after slavery was abolished there in 1834, for a school and eventually a university—the first on the island. The Winchester endowment was the source of success for many generations of men and eventually women who were victimized by slavers and slavery, who were maroons or fugitives, who were oppressed and brutalized by the Empire.

Meanwhile in England, Sam, Duke of Winchester, Lord Balthazar, and Gabriel, Lord Milton all fought to end oppression through parliamentary action. In outrage, the regent (just before he became king) stripped Sam of his ten thousand a year. Sam was happily able to laugh in the regent’s face about it as he collected moderate rents from his tenants and paid a miniscule tax to the crown, all while earning thousands from the produce of the estate and town. Sir Rafael’s reports had come in handy, and Winchester was assessed on the same scale as neighboring estates although it yielded much, much more. Happy tenants who enjoyed safe and comfortable housing for a fair price worked harder than serfs in shacks. Sam was more than able to keep the estate working at capacity without his blood money from the crown.

Balthazar eventually had to return to his own estates, and he decided to take a bride with him for good measure. Thus Princess Daphne became his wife and lady of his estate as he built steam pumps for villages all over the country. After the diphtheria epidemic, he advertised his Pure Water Engine in the W-C Country Catalog as a sure-fire preventative of the disease and could barely keep up with orders. He employed Gabriel to draft the design plan for each installation, since each village was different, and together they became wealthier than the king, especially when W-C Shipping was able to source the materials from every corner of the realm.

As for Gabriel, he met an Indian Maharani named Kali who was in England on a tour of the Empire and fell in love. She was exotic and tempestuous, and he was a fool for her. Becoming enamored of her entire culture, he built a _mahal_ for her at the beach, near the great holdings of land he and his friends owned in the vicinity of Bournemouthand the W-C shipyards, and thence he imported a menagerie to the grounds; he even took to wearing a turban and serving curries to his guests, of which the Winchesters numbered frequently. His wife was very fond of chocolates, and Lady Kali imported varieties of cacao from abroad to craft delicacies that sold for impressive sums in the W-C Country Catalog, elevating that publication to a resource for the gentry as well as for farmers and shepherds.

Lady Charlie and Patience were thrilled to return from their honeymoon to find a new baby to adore. They set up house in Winchester town, and Patience eventually became the glassblower while Charlie advertised her lights in the W-C Catalogue. Thus, the lady spent much of her time occupied with visiting great estates all over the country and Scotland creating lights for manors and rich eccentrics while her omega wife stayed at home teaching their children to blow glass. Lady Charlie’s lights remained the independent, clockwork machines that had to be cranked to Dean’s designs, but when large scale electricity generators were finally worked out, thanks in no small part to Charlie’s research, she was finally inducted into the Royal Scientific Society on her own terms. By then, of course, she didn’t need them, but it was a feather in her cap and a boon to female alphas, anyway.

Dean was happy. Happy to live in a modest, if thoroughly modern, house in Winchester with his brother near at hand in the castle and his best friend living up the lane. He was happy that Gabriel and Balthazar and their families visited regularly, and he was even happy to have Sir Rafael to dinner whenever he passed through the area. Dean was glad to be in business with Crowley because when things got hectic with his husband and his five children, he knew he did not have to do everything himself; Crowley, who had eventually proposed to and married Lady Amelia, would take care of business matters when necessary.

Through the years, Dean thought back on it sometimes— to those days when Baby Jack was brand new, and when Castiel did not yet have streaks of gray in his hair. Before Samantha and Bobbie were born, the twins with opposite personalities, before Colt, who was supposed to be their last, and before Alexander, who really was their last… Dean thought back to those early days with Castiel when they wrapped themselves around each other and supported each other through the days of uncertainty, through letter-writing battles against the crown’s greed, through not knowing what to do when a baby would not stop crying, through being knocked awake in their bed when any resident’s cistern sprung a leak in the night, or through crowds of worried people flocking to their door when news of a faraway railway accident reached the town.

Despite Winchester’s residents persisting in the misconception that Dean and Castiel were Very Important members of the town and in control of its machinations in a manner that was to be emulated or envied, they remained simply human. They still agonized over teaching their children not to say naughty words, still laughed at finding ducklings left in their bathtub, still cried when a beloved horse died, still let dinner burn in the oven because they forgot about it, making love. When Dean thought back over his life in the quiet moments and he remembered the first time he had seen Castiel, dressed finely in his morning coat, the first time he had scented him beside the little lake only a mile away, remembered the impact of his whole world shifting in a moment, Dean knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would not have changed a single moment of it, not for anything.

And when Castiel held his husband in his arms and watched their children grow up safe and healthy, he knew it, too.

“Thank you, Dean,” he would murmur. “I love you more than I can say.”


End file.
